Integral field spectroscopy based H<i>α</i>sizes of local luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies

Abstract

Aims. We study the analogy between local luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) and high-z massive star forming galaxies (SFGs) by comparing their basic H structural characteristics, such as size and luminosity surface density, in an homogeneous way (i.e. same tracer, size definition, and similar physical scales). Methods. We use integral field spectroscopy (IFS) based H emission maps for a representative sample of 54 local U/LIRGs (66 galaxies) observed with INTEGRAL/WHT and VIMOS/VLT. From this initial sample, we select 26 objects with similar H luminosities (L(H)) to those of massive (i.e. M 10 10 M or larger) SFGs at z 2, and observed on similar physical scales. We then directly compare the sizes, and luminosity (and SFR) surface densities of these local and high-z samples.