Jekyll & Hyde: quiescence and extreme obscuration in a pair of massive galaxies 1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang

Corentin Schreiber, Ivo Labbé, Karl Glazebrook, Georgios Bekiaris, Casey Papovich, Tiago Costa, David Elbaz, Glenn G. Kacprzak, Themiya Nanayakkara, Pascal Oesch, Maurilio Pannella, Lee Spitler, Caroline Straatman, Kim-Vy Tran, Tao Wang

Published 2017-09-11Version 1

We obtained ALMA spectroscopy and imaging to investigate the origin of the unexpected sub-mm emission toward the most distant quiescent galaxy known to date, ZF-COSMOS-20115 at z=3.717. We show here that this sub-mm emission is produced by another massive, compact and extremely obscured galaxy, located only 3.4 kpc away from the quiescent galaxy. We dub the quiescent and dusty galaxies Jekyll and Hyde, respectively. No dust emission is detected at the location of the quiescent galaxy, implying SFR < 13 Msun/yr, which is the most stringent upper limit ever obtained for a quiescent galaxy at these redshifts. The two sources are confirmed to lie at the same redshift thanks to the detection of [CII]158 in Hyde, which provides one the few robust redshifts for an "H-dropout" galaxy. The line has a rotating-disk velocity profile blueshifted compared to Jekyll by 549+/-60 km/s, demonstrating that it is produced by another galaxy. Careful de-blending of the Spitzer imaging confirms the existence of Hyde, and its non-detection with Hubble requires extreme attenuation by dust. Modeling the photometry of both galaxies shows that Jekyll has fully quenched >200 Myr prior to observation and still presents a challenge for models, while Hyde only harbors moderate star-formation (SFR<120 Msun/yr) and is located at least a factor of two below the z~4 main sequence. Hyde could also have stopped forming stars <200 Myr before being observed, which would be consistent with its compactness comparable to that of z~4 quiescent galaxies and its low [CII]/FIR ratio. Finally, we show that Hyde hosts a dense reservoir of gas comparable to that of extreme starbursts, suggesting that its SFR was reduced without expelling the gas outside of the galaxy. We argue that Jekyll and Hyde can be seen as two stages of quenching, and provide a unique laboratory to study this poorly understood phenomenon. [abridged]