Program: GS-2012B-C-4

Title:The Most Luminous Galaxies Found by WISE
PI:Peter Eisenhardt
Co-I(s): Roberto Assef, Sean Lake, Adam Stanford, Chao-Wei Tsai, Carrie Bridge, Dominic Benford, Roger Griffith, Daniel Stern, Andrew Blain, Jingwen Wu, Emilio Donoso, Lin Yan, Sara Petty

Abstract

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has surveyed the entire sky at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and $22 \mu$m (W1, W2, W3, and W4), reaching sensitivities hundreds of times deeper than IRAS. We have used WISE photometry to select an all-sky sample of objects which are extremely luminous. The objects are prominent in W4, but faint or undetected in W1 and W2 (W12drops). Followup spectroscopy shows that most of the sources have redshifts $z>2$. In combination with Herschel photometry, these redshifts lead to typical $L_{\rm bol} > 10^{13} L_\odot$, with $\sim10\% $ exceeding $10^{14} L_\odot$. High resolution adaptive optics imaging shows these objects are typically unlensed. We request NOAO time to obtain redshifts and optical and near IR photometry of the complete all-sky sample of the brightest W12drops, all of which are in our Herschel program. This will fulfill the primary WISE objective of finding the most extreme luminous IR galaxies in the Universe. These superlative objects will be the most fruitful for detailed studies of the physics of star formation, AGN fueling, and feedback in the most active galaxies.

Publications using this program's data