Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations of hyperluminous infrared galaxies |
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| Authors: | D Farrah A Verma S Oliver M Rowan-Robinson R McMahon |
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| Institution: | 1Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BW;2Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, 85741 Garching, Germany;3Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ;4Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA |
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| Abstract: | We present Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 I -band imaging for a sample of nine hyperluminous infrared galaxies (HLIRGs) spanning a redshift range  . Three of the sample have morphologies showing evidence for interactions and six are quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Host galaxies in the QSOs are detected reliably out to  . The detected QSO host galaxies have an elliptical morphology with scalelengths spanning  and absolute k -corrected magnitudes spanning  There is no clear correlation between the infrared (IR) power source and the optical morphology. None of the sources in the sample, including F15307+3252, shows any evidence for gravitational lensing. We infer that the IR luminosities are thus real. Based on these results, and previous studies of HLIRGs, we conclude that this class of object is broadly consistent with being a simple extrapolation of the ULIRG population to higher luminosities; ULIRGs being mainly violently interacting systems powered by starbursts and/or active galactic nuclei. Only a small number of sources, the infrared luminosities of which exceed 1013 L⊙, are intrinsically less luminous objects that have been boosted by gravitational lensing. |
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| Keywords: | gravitational lensing galaxies: active quasars: general galaxies: Seyfert galaxies: starburst infrared: galaxies |
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