A$^3$COSMOS: the infrared luminosity function and dust-obscured star formation rate density at $0.5<z<6$

Abstract

Aims: We leverage the largest available Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) survey from the archive (A$^3$COSMOS) to study to study infrared luminosity function and dust-obscured star formation rate density of sub-millimeter/millimeter (sub-mm/mm) galaxies from $z=0.5\,-\,6$. Methods: The A$^3$COSMOS survey utilizes all publicly available ALMA data in the COSMOS field, therefore having inhomogeneous coverage in terms of observing wavelength and depth. In order to derive the luminosity functions and star formation rate densities, we apply a newly developed method that corrects the statistics of an inhomogeously sampled survey of individual pointings to those representing an unbiased blind survey. Results: We find our sample to mostly consist of massive ($M_{\star} \sim 10^{10} - 10^{12}$ $\rm M_{\odot}$), IR-bright ($L_* \sim 10^{11}-10^{13.5} \rm L_{\odot}$), highly star-forming (SFR $\sim 100-1000$ $\rm M_{\odot}$ $\rm yr^{-1}$) galaxies. We find an evolutionary trend in the typical density ($\Phi^*$) and luminosity ($L^*$) of the galaxy population, which decrease and increase with redshift, respectively. Our IR LF is in agreement with previous literature results and we are able to extend to high redshift ($z > 3$) the constraints on the knee and bright-end of the LF, derived by using the Herschel data. Finally, we obtain the SFRD up to $z\sim 6$ by integrating the IR LF, finding a broad peak from $z \sim 1$ to $z \sim 3$ and a decline towards higher redshifts, in agreement with recent IR/mm-based studies, within the uncertainties, thus implying the presence of larger quantities of dust than what is expected by optical/UV studies.