Measuring PAH Emission in Ultradeep Spitzer IRS Spectroscopy of High-Redshift IR-Luminous Galaxies

The study of the dominant population of high-redshift IR-luminous galaxies (10¹¹-10¹² L_solar at 1<z<3), requires observation of sources at the ~0.1 mJy level in the mid-IR. We present the deepest spectra taken to date with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. We targeted two faint (f₂₄~0.15 mJy) sources in the Southern GOODS field at z=1.09 and z=2.69. Spectra of the lower redshift target were taken in the observed-frame 8-21 μm range, while the spectrum of the higher redshift target covered 21-37 μm. We also present the spectra of two secondary sources within the slit. We detect strong PAH emission in all four targets, and compare the spectra to those of local galaxies observed by the IRS. The z=1.09 source appears to be a typical, star-formation-dominated IR-luminous galaxy, while the z=2.69 source is a composite source with strong star formation and a prominent AGN. The IRAC colors of this source show no evidence of rest-frame near-IR stellar photospheric emission. We demonstrate that an AGN that contributes only a small (~10%) fraction of the bolometric luminosity can produce enough hot dust emission to overwhelm the near-IR photospheric emission from stars. Such sources would be excluded from photometric surveys that rely on the near-IR bump to identify starbursts, leading to an underestimate of the star formation rate density.

Based on observations obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by JPL, California Institute of Technology, for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.