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Published March 1, 2013 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

A Herschel Survey of the [N II] 205 μm Line in Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies: The [N II] 205 μm Emission as a Star Formation Rate Indicator

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Purple Mountain Observatory
  • 2. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 3. ROR icon Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • 4. ROR icon University of Crete
  • 5. ROR icon Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas
  • 6. ROR icon Paris Observatory
  • 7. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 8. ROR icon University of Virginia
  • 9. ROR icon National Radio Astronomy Observatory
  • 10. ROR icon University of Barcelona
  • 11. ROR icon University of Oxford
  • 12. ROR icon University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • 13. ROR icon Leiden University

Abstract

We present, for the first time, a statistical study of [N II] 205 μm line emission for a large sample of local luminous infrared galaxies using Herschel Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver Fourier Transform Spectrometer (SPIRE FTS) data. For our sample of galaxies, we investigate the correlation between the [N II] luminosity (L_([N II])) and the total infrared luminosity (L_(IR)), as well as the dependence of L_([N II])/L_(IR) ratio on L_(IR), far-infrared colors (IRAS f_(60)/f_(100)), and the [O III] 88 μm to [N II] luminosity ratio. We find that L_([N II]) correlates almost linearly with L_(IR) for non-active galactic nucleus galaxies (all having L_(IR) < 10^(12) L_☉) in our sample, which implies that L_([N II]) can serve as a star formation rate tracer which is particularly useful for high-redshift galaxies that will be observed with forthcoming submillimeter spectroscopic facilities such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Our analysis shows that the deviation from the mean L_([N II])-L_(IR) relation correlates with tracers of the ionization parameter, which suggests that the scatter in this relation is mainly due to the variations in the hardness, and/or ionization parameter, of the ambient galactic UV field among the sources in our sample.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2012 December 11; accepted 2013 January 30; published 2013 February 14. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA. We thank the anonymous referee for comments which improved this manuscript. This work is based in part on observations made with Herschel, an European Space Agency Cornerstone Mission with significant participation by NASA. Support for this work was provided in part by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. Research for this project is partially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 10833006) and Jiangsu Province (SBK201120678). Y.Z. thanks IPAC for the hospitality and the financial support during his visit. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
37744
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20130403-132809094

Funding

NASA/JPL/Caltech
National Natural Science Foundation of China
10833006
National Natural Science Foundation of China Jiangsu Province
SBK201120678

Dates

Created
2013-04-03
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-09
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)