EXTREMELY BRIGHT SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES beyond the LUPUS-I STAR-FORMING REGION

We report detections of two candidate distant submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), MM J154506.4-344318 and MM J154132.7-350320, which are discovered in the AzTEC/ASTE 1.1 mm survey toward the Lupus-I star-forming region. The two objects have 1.1 mm flux densities of 43.9 and 27.1 mJy, and have Herschel/SPIRE counterparts as well. The Submillimeter Array counterpart to the former SMG is identified at 890 μm and 1.3 mm. Photometric redshift estimates using all available data from the mid-infrared to the radio suggest that the redshifts of the two SMGs are z_photo ≃ 4-5 and 3, respectively. Near-infrared objects are found very close to the SMGs and they are consistent with low-z ellipticals, suggesting that the high apparent luminosities can be attributed to gravitational magnification. The cumulative number counts at S_1.1mm ≥ 25 mJy, combined with the other two 1.1 mm brightest sources, are 0.7 _-0.34^+0.56 deg^-2, which is consistent with a model prediction that accounts for flux magnification due to strong gravitational lensing. Unexpectedly, a z > 3 SMG and a Galactic dense starless core (e.g., a first hydrostatic core) could be similar in the mid-infrared to millimeter spectral energy distributions and spatial structures at least at ≳ 1″. This indicates that it is necessary to distinguish the two possibilities by means of broadband photometry from the optical to centimeter and spectroscopy to determine the redshift, when a compact object is identified toward Galactic star-forming regions.