Abstract

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) measurements for 93 Herschel-selected galaxies at 1.1 <= z <= 1.7 in COSMOS reveal a sizable (>29%) population with compact star formation (SF) sizes, lying on average > x 3.6 below the optical stellar mass (M-*)-size relation of disks. This sample widely spans the star-forming main sequence (MS), having 10(8) <= M-* <= 10(11.5 )M(circle dot) and 20 star formation rate (SFR) <= 680 M-circle dot yr(-1). The 32 size measurements and 61 upper limits are measured on ALMA images that combine observations of CO(5-4), CO(4-3), CO(2-1), and lambda(obs )similar to 1.1-1.3 mm continuum, all tracing the star-forming molecular gas. These compact galaxies have instead normally extended K-band sizes, suggesting strong specific SFR gradients. Compact galaxies comprise the 50 +/- 18% of MS galaxies at M-* > 10(11) M-circle dot. This is not expected in standard bimodal scenarios, where MS galaxies are mostly steadily growing extended disks. We suggest that compact MS objects are early post-starburst galaxies in which the merger-driven boost of SF has subsided. They retain their compact SF size until either further gas accretion restores premerger galaxy-wide SF, or until becoming quenched. The fraction of merger-affected SF inside the MS seems thus larger than anticipated and might reach similar to 50% at the highest M-*. The presence of large galaxies above the MS demonstrates an overall poor correlation between galaxy SF size and specific SFR.