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The Planck All-Sky Survey to Analyze Gravitationally-lensed Extreme Starbursts project aims to identify a population of extremely luminous galaxies using the Planck all-sky survey and to explore the nature of their gas fuelling, induced starburst, and the resulting feedback that shape their evolution. Here, we report the identification of 22 high-redshift luminous dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) at z = 1.1–3.3 drawn from a candidate list constructed using the Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer all-sky survey. They are confirmed through follow-up dust continuum imaging and CO spectroscopy using AzTEC and the Redshift Search Receiver on the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano. Their apparent infrared luminosities span (0.1–3.1) × 1014 L⊙ (median of 1.2 × 1014 L⊙), making them some of the most luminous galaxies found so far. They are also some of the rarest objects in the sky with a source density of ≲0.01 deg−2. Our Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 1.1 mm continuum observations with θ ≈ 0.4 arcsec resolution show clear ring or arc morphologies characteristic of strong lensing. Their lensing-corrected luminosity of LIR ≳ 1013 L⊙ (star-formation rate ≳ 103 M⊙ yr−1) indicates that they are the magnified versions of the most intrinsically luminous DSFGs found at these redshifts. Ourmore »spectral energy distribution analysis finds little detectable active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity despite their enormous luminosity, and any AGN activity present must be extremely heavily obscured.

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Observations of¹²COJ= 1 – 0 and HCNJ= 1 – 0 emission from NGC 5194 (M51) made with the 50 m Large Millimeter Telescope and the SEQUOIA focal plane array are presented. Using the HCN-to-CO ratio, we examine the dense gas mass fraction over a range of environmental conditions within the galaxy. Within the disk, the dense gas mass fraction varies along the spiral arms but the average value over all spiral arms is comparable to the mean value of interarm regions. We suggest that the near-constant dense gas mass fraction throughout the disk arises from a population of density-stratified, self-gravitating molecular clouds and the required density threshold to detect each spectral line. The measured dense gas fraction significantly increases in the central bulge in response to the effective pressure,P_e, from the weight of the stellar and gas components. This pressure modifies the dynamical state of the molecular cloud population and, possibly, the HCN-emitting regions in the central bulge from self-gravitating to diffuse configurations in whichP_eis greater than the gravitational energy density of individual clouds. Diffuse molecular clouds comprise a significant fraction of the molecular gas mass in the central bulge, which may account for the measured sublinear relationships betweenmore »the surface densities of the star formation rate and molecular and dense gas.

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Context. Realistic synthetic observations of theoretical source models are essential for our understanding of real observational data. In using synthetic data, one can verify the extent to which source parameters can be recovered and evaluate how various data corruption effects can be calibrated. These studies are the most important when proposing observations of new sources, in the characterization of the capabilities of new or upgraded instruments, and when verifying model-based theoretical predictions in a direct comparison with observational data. Aims. We present the SYnthetic Measurement creator for long Baseline Arrays ( SYMBA ), a novel synthetic data generation pipeline for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations. SYMBA takes into account several realistic atmospheric, instrumental, and calibration effects. Methods. We used SYMBA to create synthetic observations for the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a millimetre VLBI array, which has recently captured the first image of a black hole shadow. After testing SYMBA with simple source and corruption models, we study the importance of including all corruption and calibration effects, compared to the addition of thermal noise only. Using synthetic data based on two example general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) model images of M 87, we performed case studies to assess the image qualitymore »that can be obtained with the current and future EHT array for different weather conditions. Results. Our synthetic observations show that the effects of atmospheric and instrumental corruptions on the measured visibilities are significant. Despite these effects, we demonstrate how the overall structure of our GRMHD source models can be recovered robustly with the EHT2017 array after performing calibration steps, which include fringe fitting, a priori amplitude and network calibration, and self-calibration. With the planned addition of new stations to the EHT array in the coming years, images could be reconstructed with higher angular resolution and dynamic range. In our case study, these improvements allowed for a distinction between a thermal and a non-thermal GRMHD model based on salient features in reconstructed images.« less