SPT-S J041839-4751.8 APEX spectra

In particular, we report Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) detections of the [OI] 145um and [OIII] 88um lines and Atacama Compact Array (ACA) detections of the [NII] 122 and 205um lines. The [OI] 145um/[CII] 158um line ratio is ~5x higher compared to the average of local galaxies.

We interpret this as evidence that the ISM is dominated by photo-dissociation regions with high gas densities. The line ratios, and in particular those of [OIII] 88um and [NII] 122um imply that the ISM in SPT 0418-47 is already chemically enriched to nearly solar metallicity. While the strong gravitational amplification was required to detect these lines with APEX, larger samples can be observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and should allow observers to determine if the dense, solar metallicity ISM is common among these highly star-forming galaxies.