Are Dusty Galaxies Blue? Insights on UV Attenuation from Dust-selected Galaxies
Creators
-
1.
University of California, Irvine
-
2.
California Institute of Technology
-
3.
University of Hawaii at Manoa
-
4.
The University of Texas at Austin
-
5.
University of Colorado Boulder
-
6.
Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
-
7.
International School for Advanced Studies
-
8.
Virginia Tech
-
9.
University of Iowa
-
10.
CEA Saclay
-
11.
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
-
12.
University of Edinburgh
-
13.
European Southern Observatory
-
14.
Nagoya University
Abstract
Galaxies' rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) properties are often used to directly infer the degree to which dust obscuration affects the measurement of star formation rates (SFRs). While much recent work has focused on calibrating dust attenuation in galaxies selected at rest-frame ultraviolet wavelengths, locally and at high-z, here we investigate attenuation in dusty, star forming galaxies (DSFGs) selected at far-infrared wavelengths. By combining multiwavelength coverage across 0.15-500 μm in the COSMOS field, in particular making use of Herschel imaging, and a rich data set on local galaxies, we find an empirical variation in the relationship between the rest-frame UV slope (β) and the ratio of infrared-to-ultraviolet emission (L_IR/L_UV ≡ IRX) as a function of infrared luminosity, or total SFR. Both locally and at high-z, galaxies above SFR ≳ 50 M_☉ yr^–1 deviate from the nominal IRX-β relation toward bluer colors by a factor proportional to their increasing IR luminosity. We also estimate contamination rates of DSFGs on high-z dropout searches of ≪1% at z ≲ 4-10, providing independent verification that contamination from very dusty foreground galaxies is low in Lyman-break galaxy searches. Overall, our results are consistent with the physical interpretation that DSFGs, e.g., galaxies with >50 M_☉ yr^–1, are dominated at all epochs by short-lived, extreme burst events, producing many young O and B stars that are primarily, yet not entirely, enshrouded in thick dust cocoons. The blue rest-frame UV slopes of DSFGs are inconsistent with the suggestion that most DSFGs at z ~ 2 exhibit steady-state star formation in secular disks.
Additional Information
© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2014 June 23; accepted 2014 September 25; published 2014 November 12. COSMOS is based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA Inc, under NASA contract NAS 5-26555; also based on data collected at: the Subaru Telescope, which is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and NASA; the European Southern Observatory, Chile; Kitt Peak National Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) under cooperative agreement with theNational Science Foundation; the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc; and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope operated by the National Research Council of Canada, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France, and the University of Hawaii. PACS has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by MPE (Germany) and including UVIE (Austria); KU Leuven, CSL, IMEC (Belgium); CEA, LAM (France); MPIA (Germany); INAF-IFSI/OAA/OAP/OAT, LENS, SISSA (Italy); IAC (Spain). This development has been supported by the funding agencies BMVIT (Austria), ESA-PRODEX (Belgium), CEA/CNES (France), DLR (Germany), ASI/INAF (Italy), and CICYT/MCYT (Spain). SPIRE has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by Cardiff Univ. (UK) and including: Univ. Lethbridge (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, LAM (France); IFSI, Univ. Padua (Italy); IAC (Spain); Stockholm Observatory (Sweden); Imperial College London, RAL, UCL-MSSL, UKATC, Univ. Sussex (UK); and Caltech, JPL, HNSC, Univ. Colorado (USA). This development has been supported by national funding agencies: CSA (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, CNES, CNRS (France); ASI (Italy);MCINN (Spain); SNSB (Sweden); STFC, UKSA (UK); and NASA (USA). This research has made use of data from the HerMES project (http://hermes.sussex.ac.uk/). HerMES is a Herschel Key Programme utilizing Guaranteed Time from the SPIRE instrument team, ESAC scientists and a mission scientist. The data presented in this paper will be released through the HerMES Database in Marseille,HeDaM (http://hedam.oamp.fr/HerMES/). We would also like to recognize the use of the Glue Visualization tool (www.glueviz.org) in the initial analysis of this data set. C.M.C. acknowledges support from a McCue Fellowship through the University of California, Irvine's Center for Cosmology. A.C. acknowledges support from NSF AST-1313319. R.J.I. acknowledges support from ERC AdG, COSMICISM. T.T.T. has been supported by the Grant-in-Aid for the Scientific Research Fund (24111707) commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. T.T.T. has also been partially supported from Strategic Young Researches OverseasVisits Program forAccelerating Brain Circulation from the MEXT. We are grateful to the anonymous referee for productive comments that improved the paper. We would also like to thank Naveen Reddy, Brian Siana, Mara Salvato, and Douglas Scott for helpful conversations during the manuscript's preparation.Attached Files
Published - 0004-637X_796_2_95.pdf
Submitted - 1410.0702v1.pdf
Files
0004-637X_796_2_95.pdf
Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 53073
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141222-091108670
Related works
- Describes
- http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.0702 (URL)
Funding
- NASA
- NAS 5-26555
- ESA Member States
- Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie (BMVIT)
- ESA-PRODEX (Belgium)
- Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA)
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
- Ministerio de Ciencia Y Tecnologia (MCYT)
- Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
- National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
- Swedish National Space Board (SNSB)
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA)
- McCue Fellowship
- University of California, Irvine
- NSF
- AST-1313319
- European Research Council (ERC)
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
- 24111707
- Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
- Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT)
Dates
- Created
-
2014-12-22Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- COSMOS , Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)