ALMA detection of [C II] 158 mic. emission emission from a strongly lensed z = 2.013 star-forming galaxy? (Schaerer et al.)

Vol. 576
In section 1. Letters

ALMA detection of [C II] 158 μm emission from a strongly lensed z = 2.013 star-forming galaxy?

Understanding the structure and kinematics of the interstellar medium (ISM) of distant galaxies is one of the ultimate goals of present day galaxy evolution studies. These issues can now begin to be addressed thanks to a combination of sub-millimetric observations, hunting for rest-frame far-IR atomic lines (as the forbidden 158um line from ionized carbon) carrying away a large fraction of the energy budget of the galaxy ISM, and gravitational lensing techniques. The latter are necessary to amplify (by about 50 times in this case) the feeble emission line signal. The authors of this paper present one of the first successful experiments of this kind, finding that the structure of the ISM in these early systems closely resembles that observed in local, normal galaxies.