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| Paper: |
The Turbulent ISM of Galaxies about 10 Gyrs Ago: An Impact on their IMF? |
| Volume: |
440, UP2010: Have Observations Revealed a Variable Upper End of the Initial Mass Function? |
| Page: |
345 |
| Authors: |
Le Tiran, L.; Lehnert, M. D. |
| Abstract: |
The utilization of integral-field spectroscopy has led us to a new
understanding of the physical conditions in galaxies within the first few
billion years after the Big Bang. The combination of the kinematics and
emission line diagnostics is a powerful technique to discern the physical
processes that are at work in distant galaxies. In these proceedings, we
present observations of 10 massive galaxies as seen as they were 9 Gyrs
ago using SINFONI from the ESO-VLT, combined with photometry from the
DEEP2 Survey. We first portray a brief picture of the physical conditions
in the warm ionized medium of these galaxies; they exhibit complex
morphologies, high star formation and are so pressure dominated they are
likely to drive winds and high turbulence. Moreover, their ratio of Hα
to FUV flux to their R-band luminosity surface brightnesses indicates
that perhaps their initial mass function is flatter than Salpeter at the
high mass end, as has been suggested recently for some local galaxies. It
may be that high turbulence is responsible for skewing the IMF towards
more massive stars as suggested by some theories of star-formation. |
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