PHIBSS: molecular gas content and scaling relations in z~1-3 normal star forming galaxies

Understand

We present PHIBSS, the IRAM Plateau de Bure high-z blue sequence CO 3-2 survey of the molecular gas properties in normal star forming galaxies (SFGs) near the cosmic star formation peak.

• PHIBSS provides 52 CO detections in two redshift slices at z~1.2 and 2.2, with log(M*(M_solar))>10.4 and log(SFR(M_solar/yr))>1.5.
• Including a correction for the incomplete coverage of the M*-SFR plane, we infer average gas fractions of ~0.33 at z~1.2 and ~0.47 at z~2.2.
• Gas fractions drop with stellar mass, in agreement with cosmological simulations including strong star formation feedback.