| Description |
NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)has surveyed the entire sky at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns (W1, W2, W3, and W4), reaching sensitivities hundreds of times deeper than IRAS. We have used WISE photometry to select an all-sky sample of objects which are extremely luminous. The objects are prominent in W4, but faint or undetected in W1 and W2 (W12drops). Followup spectroscopy of ~ 100 sources shows over 70% of W12drops have redshifts > 1.6, which with OT1 PACS and SPIRE photometry of 27 sources leads to over 1E13solar luminosities, with ~ 10% exceeding 1E14 solar luminosities.High resolution adaptive optics imaging shows these objects are unlensed. We request 47.3 hours of Herschel time to complete the all-sky sample of the brightest 185 W12 drops, fulfilling the primary WISE objective of finding the most extreme luminous IR galaxies in the Universe. These superlative objects will be the most fruitful fordetailed studies of the physics of star formation, AGN fueling,and feedback in the most active galaxies. |
| Keywords |
Herschel Space Observatory data, ESA Herschel mission dataset, far-infrared astronomy observations, submillimeter astronomy data, infrared space telescope observations, PACS photometer data, PACS spectrometer data, SPIRE photometer data, SPIRE Fourier transform spectrometer data, HIFI heterodyne spectroscopy data, far-infrared spectroscopy dataset, submillimeter spectral line observations, cold universe observations dataset, star formation infrared data, molecular cloud far-infrared observations, interstellar medium spectroscopy data, protoplanetary disk infrared observations, galaxy evolution far-infrared data, dust emission submillimeter observations, cosmic infrared background measurements, extragalactic infrared survey data, calibrated level 2 data products, FITS files astronomy, spectral cubes far-infrared, flux-calibrated maps, continuum photometry data, spectral energy distribution measurements, ESA Herschel Science Archive data |
