NOEMA 3D: A first kiloparsec resolution study of a z  ∼ 1.5 main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge

Stavros Pastras; Reinhard Genzel; Linda J. Tacconi; Karl Schuster; Roberto Neri; Natascha M. Förster Schreiber; Thorsten Naab; Capucine Barfety; Andreas Burkert; Yixian Cao; Jianhang Chen; Françoise Combes; Ric Davies; Frank Eisenhauer; Juan M. Espejo Salcedo; Santiago García-Burillo; Rodrigo Herrera-Camus; Jean Baptiste Jolly; Lilian L. Lee; Minju M. Lee; Daizhong Liu; Dieter Lutz; Amit Nestor Shachar; Eleonora Parlanti; Sedona H. Price; Claudia Pulsoni; Alvio Renzini; Letizia Scaloni; Taro T. Shimizu; Volker Springel; Amiel Sternberg; Eckhard Sturm; Giulia Tozzi; Stijn Wuyts; Hannah Übler

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202555430

NOEMA ^3D: A first kiloparsec resolution study of a z ∼ 1.5 main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge

Stavros Pastras, Reinhard Genzel, Linda J. Tacconi, Karl Schuster, Roberto Neri, Natascha M. Förster Schreiber, Thorsten Naab, Capucine Barfety, Andreas Burkert, Yixian Cao, Jianhang Chen, Françoise Combes, Ric Davies, Frank Eisenhauer, Juan M. Espejo Salcedo, Santiago García-Burillo, Rodrigo Herrera-Camus, Jean Baptiste Jolly, Lilian L. Lee, Minju M. LeeDaizhong Liu, Dieter Lutz, Amit Nestor Shachar, Eleonora Parlanti, Sedona H. Price, Claudia Pulsoni, Alvio Renzini, Letizia Scaloni, Taro T. Shimizu, Volker Springel, Amiel Sternberg, Eckhard Sturm, Giulia Tozzi, Stijn Wuyts, Hannah Übler

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (SciVal)

Abstract

We present a very deep CO(3–2) observation of a massive, gas-rich, main sequence, barred spiral galaxy at z ≈ 1.52. Our data were taken with the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer for a 12-antenna equivalent on-source integration time of ∼50 hours. We fit the major axis kinematics with the forward modeling of a rotating disk and subtracted the two-dimensional beam convolved best-fit model, which revealed signatures of planar noncircular motions in the residuals. The inferred in-plane radial velocities are remarkably high, of the order of ≈60 km/s. Direct comparisons with a high-resolution, simulated, gas-rich, barred galaxy, obtained with the moving mesh code AREPO and the TNG sub-grid model, show that the observed noncircular gas flows can be explained as radial flows driven by the central bar, with an inferred net inflow rate of the order of the star formation rate (SFR). Given the recent evidence for a higher-than-expected fraction of barred disk galaxies at cosmic noon, our results suggest that rapid gas inflows due to bars could be important evolutionary drivers for the dominant population of star-forming galaxies at the peak epoch of star and galaxy formation.

Original language	English
Article number	A329
Journal	Astronomy and Astrophysics
Volume	704
Early online date	31 Dec 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555430
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2025

Funding

The authors thank the anonymous referee for the useful comments that helped improve the paper. S.P. is thankful to Rüdiger Pakmor for his insightful suggestions on modifications to the TNG model for the suppression of clump formation and Panos Patsis for stimulating discussions on the dynamics of barred galaxies. N.M.F.S. acknowledges support, and C.B., J.C., J.M.E.S., G.T. are funded by the European Union (ERC, GALPHYS, 101055023). H.Ü. acknowledges funding by the EU (ERC APEX, 101164796). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or the ERC. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. T.N. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2094 – 390783311 of the DFG Cluster of Excellence ‘ORIGINS’. S.G-B. acknowledges support from the Spanish grant PID2022-138560NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU. R.H-C. thanks the Max Planck Society for support under the Partner Group project ‘The Baryon Cycle in Galaxies’ between the Max Planck for Extraterrestrial Physics and the Universidad de Concepción. R.H-C. gratefully acknowledges financial support from ANID – MILENIO – NCN2024_112 and ANID BASAL FB210003. M.L. acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101107795. L.S. acknowledges the financial support from the PhD grant funded on PNRR Funds Notice No. 3264 28-12-2021 PNRR M4C2 Reference IR0000034 STILES Investment 3.1 CUP C33C22000640006. The data analyzed in this paper are CO observations taken as part of the NOEMA3D guaranteed time project at the Northern Extended Array for Millimeter Astronomy (NOEMA, located on the Plateau de Bure) Interferometer of the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range (IRAM), Grenoble, France. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain). This work is also based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with program #1181 and can be accessed via DOI.org/10.17909/7zbz-tt49. This research is also based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5–26555. These observations are associated with the CANDELS Multi-Cycle Treasury Program. Some of the data products presented herein were retrieved from the Dawn JWST Archive (DJA). DJA is an initiative of the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), which is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant DNRF140. We also acknowledge the use of the following open-source software: NumPy (Harris et al. 2020), SciPy (Virtanen et al. 2020), Astropy (Astropy Collaboration 2022), Photutils (Bradley et al. 2024), Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), CMasher (van der Velden 2020), TRILOGY (Coe et al. 2012), pygad (Röttgers 2018; Röttgers et al. 2020), GILDAS (Gildas Team 2013) and DysmalPy (Davies et al. 2004b,a; Cresci et al. 2009; Davies et al. 2011; Wuyts et al. 2016b; Lang et al. 2017; Price et al. 2021; Lee et al. 2025).

Keywords

galaxies: evolution
galaxies: high-redshift
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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Pastras2025_arXivAccepted author manuscript, 13.2 MB

Cite this

Pastras, S., Genzel, R., Tacconi, L. J., Schuster, K., Neri, R., Förster Schreiber, N. M., Naab, T., Barfety, C., Burkert, A., Cao, Y., Chen, J., Combes, F., Davies, R., Eisenhauer, F., Espejo Salcedo, J. M., García-Burillo, S., Herrera-Camus, R., Jolly, J. B., Lee, L. L., ... Übler, H. (2025). NOEMA ^3D: A first kiloparsec resolution study of a z ∼ 1.5 main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 704, Article A329. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555430

Pastras, S, Genzel, R, Tacconi, LJ, Schuster, K, Neri, R, Förster Schreiber, NM, Naab, T, Barfety, C, Burkert, A, Cao, Y, Chen, J, Combes, F, Davies, R, Eisenhauer, F, Espejo Salcedo, JM, García-Burillo, S, Herrera-Camus, R, Jolly, JB, Lee, LL, Lee, MM, Liu, D, Lutz, D, Nestor Shachar, A, Parlanti, E, Price, SH, Pulsoni, C, Renzini, A, Scaloni, L, Shimizu, TT, Springel, V, Sternberg, A, Sturm, E, Tozzi, G, Wuyts, S & Übler, H 2025, 'NOEMA ^3D: A first kiloparsec resolution study of a z ∼ 1.5 main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge', Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 704, A329. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202555430

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title = "NOEMA 3D: A first kiloparsec resolution study of a z ∼ 1.5 main sequence barred galaxy channeling gas into a growing bulge",

abstract = "We present a very deep CO(3–2) observation of a massive, gas-rich, main sequence, barred spiral galaxy at z ≈ 1.52. Our data were taken with the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer for a 12-antenna equivalent on-source integration time of ∼50 hours. We fit the major axis kinematics with the forward modeling of a rotating disk and subtracted the two-dimensional beam convolved best-fit model, which revealed signatures of planar noncircular motions in the residuals. The inferred in-plane radial velocities are remarkably high, of the order of ≈60 km/s. Direct comparisons with a high-resolution, simulated, gas-rich, barred galaxy, obtained with the moving mesh code AREPO and the TNG sub-grid model, show that the observed noncircular gas flows can be explained as radial flows driven by the central bar, with an inferred net inflow rate of the order of the star formation rate (SFR). Given the recent evidence for a higher-than-expected fraction of barred disk galaxies at cosmic noon, our results suggest that rapid gas inflows due to bars could be important evolutionary drivers for the dominant population of star-forming galaxies at the peak epoch of star and galaxy formation.",

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AU - Pastras, Stavros

AU - Genzel, Reinhard

AU - Tacconi, Linda J.

AU - Schuster, Karl

AU - Neri, Roberto

AU - Förster Schreiber, Natascha M.

AU - Naab, Thorsten

AU - Barfety, Capucine

AU - Burkert, Andreas

AU - Cao, Yixian

AU - Chen, Jianhang

AU - Combes, Françoise

AU - Davies, Ric

AU - Eisenhauer, Frank

AU - Espejo Salcedo, Juan M.

AU - García-Burillo, Santiago

AU - Herrera-Camus, Rodrigo

AU - Jolly, Jean Baptiste

AU - Lee, Lilian L.

AU - Lee, Minju M.

AU - Liu, Daizhong

AU - Lutz, Dieter

AU - Nestor Shachar, Amit

AU - Parlanti, Eleonora

AU - Price, Sedona H.

AU - Pulsoni, Claudia

AU - Renzini, Alvio

AU - Scaloni, Letizia

AU - Shimizu, Taro T.

AU - Springel, Volker

AU - Sternberg, Amiel

AU - Sturm, Eckhard

AU - Tozzi, Giulia

AU - Wuyts, Stijn

AU - Übler, Hannah

PY - 2025/12/31

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N2 - We present a very deep CO(3–2) observation of a massive, gas-rich, main sequence, barred spiral galaxy at z ≈ 1.52. Our data were taken with the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer for a 12-antenna equivalent on-source integration time of ∼50 hours. We fit the major axis kinematics with the forward modeling of a rotating disk and subtracted the two-dimensional beam convolved best-fit model, which revealed signatures of planar noncircular motions in the residuals. The inferred in-plane radial velocities are remarkably high, of the order of ≈60 km/s. Direct comparisons with a high-resolution, simulated, gas-rich, barred galaxy, obtained with the moving mesh code AREPO and the TNG sub-grid model, show that the observed noncircular gas flows can be explained as radial flows driven by the central bar, with an inferred net inflow rate of the order of the star formation rate (SFR). Given the recent evidence for a higher-than-expected fraction of barred disk galaxies at cosmic noon, our results suggest that rapid gas inflows due to bars could be important evolutionary drivers for the dominant population of star-forming galaxies at the peak epoch of star and galaxy formation.

AB - We present a very deep CO(3–2) observation of a massive, gas-rich, main sequence, barred spiral galaxy at z ≈ 1.52. Our data were taken with the IRAM-NOEMA interferometer for a 12-antenna equivalent on-source integration time of ∼50 hours. We fit the major axis kinematics with the forward modeling of a rotating disk and subtracted the two-dimensional beam convolved best-fit model, which revealed signatures of planar noncircular motions in the residuals. The inferred in-plane radial velocities are remarkably high, of the order of ≈60 km/s. Direct comparisons with a high-resolution, simulated, gas-rich, barred galaxy, obtained with the moving mesh code AREPO and the TNG sub-grid model, show that the observed noncircular gas flows can be explained as radial flows driven by the central bar, with an inferred net inflow rate of the order of the star formation rate (SFR). Given the recent evidence for a higher-than-expected fraction of barred disk galaxies at cosmic noon, our results suggest that rapid gas inflows due to bars could be important evolutionary drivers for the dominant population of star-forming galaxies at the peak epoch of star and galaxy formation.

KW - galaxies: evolution

KW - galaxies: high-redshift

KW - galaxies: kinematics and dynamics

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