A cold, massive, rotating disk galaxy 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.

Massive disk galaxies like the Milky Way are expected to form at late times in traditional models of galaxy formation1,2, but recent numerical simulations suggest that such galaxies could form as early as a billion years after the Big Bang through the accretion of cold material and mergers3,4. Observationally, it has been difficult to identify disk galaxies in emission at high redshift5,6 in order to discern between competing models of galaxy formation. Here we report imaging, with a resolution of about 1.3 kiloparsecs, of the 158-micrometre emission line from singly ionized carbon, the far-infrared dust continuum and the near-ultraviolet continuum emission from a galaxy at a redshift of 4.2603, identified by detecting its absorption of quasar light. These observations show that the emission arises from gas inside a cold, dusty, rotating disk with a rotational velocity of about 272 kilometres per second. The detection of emission from carbon monoxide in the galaxy yields a molecular mass that is consistent with the estimate from the ionized carbon emission of about 72 billion solar masses. The existence of such a massive, rotationally supported, cold disk galaxy when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old favours formation through either cold-mode accretion or mergers, although its large rotational velocity and large content of cold gas remain challenging to reproduce with most numerical simulations7,8.

H I 21-centimetre emission from an ensemble of galaxies at an average redshift of one.

Baryonic processes in galaxy evolution include the infall of gas onto galaxies to form neutral atomic hydrogen, which is then converted to the molecular state (H2), and, finally, the conversion of H2 to stars. Understanding galaxy evolution thus requires an understanding of the evolution of stars and of neutral atomic and molecular hydrogen. For the stars, the cosmic star-formation rate density is known to peak at redshifts from 1 to 3, and to decline by an order of magnitude over approximately the subsequent 10 billion years1; the causes of this decline are not known. For the gas, the weakness of the hyperfine transition of H I at 21-centimetre wavelength-the main tracer of the H I content of galaxies-means that it has not hitherto been possible to measure the atomic gas mass of galaxies at redshifts higher than about 0.4; this is a critical gap in our understanding of galaxy evolution. Here we report a measurement of the average H I mass of star-forming galaxies at a redshift of about one, obtained by stacking2 their individual H I 21-centimetre emission signals. We obtain an average H I mass similar to the average stellar mass of the sample. We also estimate the average star-formation rate of the same galaxies from the 1.4-gigahertz radio continuum, and find that the H I mass can fuel the observed star-formation rates for only 1 to 2 billion years in the absence of fresh gas infall. This suggests that gas accretion onto galaxies at redshifts of less than one may have been insufficient to sustain high star-formation rates in star-forming galaxies. This is likely to be the cause of the decline in the cosmic star-formation rate density at redshifts below one.

Stringent Constraints on Fundamental Constant Evolution Using Conjugate 18 cm Satellite OH Lines.

We have used the Arecibo Telescope to carry out one of the deepest-ever integrations in radio astronomy, targeting the redshifted conjugate satellite OH 18 cm lines at z≈0.247 towards PKS 1413+135. The satellite OH 1720 and 1612 MHz lines are, respectively, in emission and absorption, with exactly the same line shapes due to population inversion in the OH ground state levels. Since the 1720 and 1612 MHz line rest frequencies have different dependences on the fine structure constant α and the proton-electron mass ratio µ, a comparison between their measured redshifts allows one to probe changes in α and µ with cosmological time. In the case of conjugate satellite OH 18 cm lines, the predicted perfect cancellation of the sum of the line optical depths provides a strong test for the presence of systematic effects that might limit their use in probing fundamental constant evolution. A nonparametric analysis of our new Arecibo data yields [ΔX/X]=(+0.97±1.52)×10^{-6}, where X≡µα^{2}. Combining this with our earlier results from the Arecibo Telescope and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, we obtain [ΔX/X]=(-1.0±1.3)×10^{-6}, consistent with no changes in the quantity µα^{2} over the last 2.9 Gyr. This is the most stringent present constraint on fractional changes in µα^{2} from astronomical spectroscopy, and with no evidence for systematic effects.

[C ii] 158-µm emission from the host galaxies of damped Lyman-alpha systems.

Gas surrounding high-redshift galaxies has been studied through observations of absorption line systems toward background quasars for decades. However, it has proven difficult to identify and characterize the galaxies associated with these absorbers due to the intrinsic faintness of the galaxies compared with the quasars at optical wavelengths. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, we report on detections of [C ii] 158-µm line and dust-continuum emission from two galaxies associated with two such absorbers at a redshift of z ~ 4. Our results indicate that the hosts of these high-metallicity absorbers have physical properties similar to massive star-forming galaxies and are embedded in enriched neutral hydrogen gas reservoirs that extend well beyond the star-forming interstellar medium of these galaxies.

Constraining the variation of fundamental constants using 18 cm OH lines.

We describe a new technique to estimate variations in the fundamental constants using 18 cm OH absorption lines, with the advantage that all lines arise in the same species, allowing a clean comparison between the measured redshifts. In conjunction with one additional transition, it is possible to simultaneously measure changes in alpha, g(p), and y identical with m(e)/m(p). We use the 1665 and 1667 MHz line redshifts in conjunction with those of HI 21 cm and mm-wave molecular absorption in a gravitational lens at z approximately 0.68 to constrain changes in the three parameters over the redshift range 0

Conjugate 18 cm OH satellite lines at a cosmological distance.

We have detected the two 18 cm OH satellite lines from the z approximately 0.247 source PKS1413+135, the 1720 MHz line in emission and the 1612 MHz line in absorption. The 1720 MHz luminosity is L(OH) approximately 354L (center dot in circle), more than an order of magnitude larger than that of any other known 1720 MHz maser. The profiles of the two satellite lines are conjugate, implying that they arise in the same gas. This allows us to test for any changes in the values of fundamental constants without being affected by systematic uncertainties arising from relative motions between the gas clouds in which the different lines arise. Our data constrain changes in G identical with g(p)[alpha(2)/y](1.849), where y identical with m(e)/m(p); we find DeltaG/G=2.2+/-3.8 x 10(-5), consistent with no changes in alpha, g(p), and y.