Cosmic happenstance: 24-μm selected, multi-component Herschel sources are line-of-sight projections

In this paper, we investigate the physical associations between blended far-infrared (FIR)-emitting galaxies, in order to identify the level of line-of-sight projection contamination in the single-dish Herschel data. Building on previous work, and as part of the Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project (HELP), we identify a sample of galaxies in the COSMOS field which are found to be both FIR-bright (typically $\sim 15$ mJy) and blended within the Herschel 250 $\mu$m beam. We identify a spectroscopic or photometric redshift for each FIR-bright source. We conduct a joint probability distribution analysis on the redshift probability density functions to determine the fraction of the FIR sources with multiple FIR-bright counterparts which are likely to be found at consistent ($\Delta z$ $< 0.01$) redshifts. We find that only 3 (0.4 per cent) of the pair permutations between counterparts are $>50$ per cent likely to be at consistent redshifts. A majority of counterparts (72 per cent) have no overlap in their redshift probability distributions whatsoever. This is in good agreement with the results of recent simulations, which indicate that single-dish observations of the FIR sky should be strongly contaminated by line of sight projection effects. We conclude that for our sample of 3.6- and 24-$\mu$m selected, FIR-bright objects in the COSMOS field, the overwhelming majority of multi-component FIR systems are line of sight projections within the 18.1 arcsec Herschel beam, rather than physical associations.