GOODS–Herschel: an infrared main sequence for star-forming galaxies

By D. Elbaz, Mark Dickinson, H. Hwang, T. Díaz-Santos, G. Magdis, B. Magnelli, D. L. Borgne, F. Galliano, M. Pannella, P. Chanial and 45 more. 2011

910 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the deepest 100 to 500 μm far-infrared observations obtained with the Herschel Space Observatory as part of the GOODS-Herschel key program, and examine the infrared (IR) 3–500 μm spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies at 0 < z < 2.5, supplemented by a local reference sample from IRAS, ISO, Spitzer, and AKARI data. We determine the projected star formation densities of local galaxies from their radio and mid-IR continuum sizes. We find that the ratio of total IR luminosity to rest-frame 8 μm luminosity, IR8 (≡ L_(IR)^(tot)/L_8), follows a Gaussian distribution centered on IR8 = 4 (σ = 1.6) and defines an IR main sequence for star-forming galaxies independent of redshift and luminosity. Outliers from this main sequence produce a tail skewed toward higher values of IR8. This minority population (  3 × 10^(10) L_⊙ kpc^(-2)) and a high specific star formation rate (i.e., starbursts). The rest-frame, UV-2700 A size of these distant starbursts is typically half that of main sequence galaxies, supporting the correlation between star formation density and starburst activity that is measured for the local sample. Locally, luminous and ultraluminous IR galaxies, (U)LIRGs (L_(IR)^(tot)≥ 10^(11) L_☉), are systematically in the starburst mode, whereas most distant (U)LIRGs form stars in the “normal” main sequence mode. This confusion between two modes of star formation is the cause of the so-called “mid-IR excess” population of galaxies found at z > 1.5 by previous studies. Main sequence galaxies have strong polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission line features, a broad far-IR bump resulting from a combination of dust temperatures (T_(dust) ~ 15–50 K), and an effective T_(dust)  ~ 31 K, as derived from the peak wavelength of their infrared SED. Galaxies in the starburst regime instead exhibit weak PAH equivalent widths and a sharper far-IR bump with an effective T_(dust)~ 40 K. Finally, we present evidence that the mid-to-far IR emission of X-ray active galactic nuclei (AGN) is predominantly produced by star formation and that candidate dusty AGNs with a power-law emission in the mid-IR systematically occur in compact, dusty starbursts. After correcting for the effect of starbursts on IR8, we identify new candidates for extremely obscured AGNs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/07ae0e6804a4e72812ef79ec5cde74a19bf3a077

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Citations in the corpus

• A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, background): “Recent studies have observed the existence of two different modes of star formation: the quiescent “main sequence” star formation, and starbursts (Genzel et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2011).”
• GOODS-HERSCHEL MEASUREMENTS OF THE DUST ATTENUATION OF TYPICAL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: OBSERVATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET-SELECTED GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, methodology): “Elbaz et al. (2011) demonstrate that variations in IR8 may be due primarily to differences in the infrared luminosity surface density of galaxies, such that main sequence galaxies are characterized by star formation that is more extended than that present in starbursts (see Section 5).”
• Characterization of Scuba-2 450 μm and 850 μm selected galaxies in the COSMOS field (2013, background): “…out that, despite their extreme star formation rates >∼ 200 M yr−1, SMGs and high-z ULIRGs are not homogeneously described by major mergers (e.g. Daddi et al. 2009; Bothwell et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2011; Rodighiero et al. 2011; Alaghband-Zadeh et al. 2012; Hayward et al. 2012; Targett 2011).”
• Structural and Star-forming Relations since z ∼ 3: Connecting Compact Star-forming and Quiescent Galaxies (2015, methodology): “…main sequence (SFR-MS) (Noeske et al. 2007; Elbaz et al. 2007; Salim et al. 2007; Pannella et al. 2009; Magdis et al. 2010; Wuyts et al. 2011a; Elbaz et al. 2011; Rodighiero et al. 2010; Whitaker et al. 2012; Pannella et al. 2014), which is thought to describe a relatively smooth mode of…”
• The deepest Herschel-PACS far-infrared survey: number counts and infrared luminosity functions from combined PEP/GOODS-H observations (2013, methodology): “SPIRE observations and catalogues are described in Elbaz et al. (2011) and are publicly available at http://hedam.oamp.fr/GOODS-Herschel Article number, page 2 of 22 Magnelli et al.: PEP/GOODS-H far infrared survey The entire 11′ × 17′ GOODS-S field was observed by PEP with PACS at 70, 100 and 160…”
• GOODS-Herschel: dust attenuation properties of UV selected high redshift galaxies (2012, methodology): “We cross-correlate these 751 sources with the GOODSHerschel catalogue obtained from source extraction on the PACS images performed at the prior position of Spitzer 24 µm sources, as described in Elbaz et al. (2011).”
• THE CONTRIBUTION OF STARBURSTS AND NORMAL GALAXIES TO INFRARED LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT z < 2 (2012, methodology): “SFGs on the main sequence are complemented by “starbursting” galaxies (a few percent of the total population; e.g., Rodighiero et al. 2011) with highly elevated sSFRs. Differences between the shape of the IR spectral energy distribution (SED; Elbaz et al. 2011) of these two kinds of systems and the ”
• Accreting supermassive black holes in the COSMOS field and the connection to their host galaxies (2012, methodology): “The IR luminosity LIR is derived from the monochromatic luminosity at the longest PACS wavelength available, converted using the IR SED templates of Chary & Elbaz (2001), because it has been proven to provide reliable conversions over a broad range of redshift (Elbaz et al. 2011).”
• AN ALMA SURVEY OF SUB-MILLIMETER GALAXIES IN THE EXTENDED CHANDRA DEEP FIELD SOUTH: PHYSICAL PROPERTIES DERIVED FROM ULTRAVIOLET-TO-RADIO MODELING (2015, background): “…combined with higher inferred dust attenuation AV, may indicate that these galaxies are more compact than their optically bright counterparts, which would increase the dust column (hence higher AV) and provide more effective dust heating by the stellar radiation field (e.g., Elbaz et al. 2011).”
• A Herschel view of the far-infrared properties of submillimetre galaxies (2012, methodology): “Finally, Elbaz et al. (2011) and Wuyts et al. (2011) also find that∆log(SSFR)MS correlates with the compactness of the star-forming region; the SFR density of main sequence galaxies is roughly constant while it increases with increasing offset above the main sequence.”
• The current status of galaxy formation (2012, background): “One finds an infrared Main Sequence of galactic SFRs: SFR versus M∗ (Elbaz et al., 2011).”
• GALAXY STRUCTURE AND MODE OF STAR FORMATION IN THE SFR–MASS PLANE FROM z ∼ 2.5 TO z ∼ 0.1 (2011, background): “At higher redshifts, this is consistent with recent findings based on rest-frame UV size measurements by Elbaz et al. (2011).”
• Dust spectral energy distributions of nearby galaxies: an insight from the Herschel Reference Survey (2014, methodology): “As for the low-z libraries, these templates agree relatively well around 100 µm, except for the SED of the MS galaxies from Elbaz et al. (2011).”
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z = 4 to the present day (2014, methodology): “Although there exist other calibrations that are applicable to higher redshifts (e.g., Elbaz et al. 2011; Wuyts et al. 2011), we do not know how they would impact the measurement of the scatter of the main sequence.”
• An Older, More Quiescent Universe from Panchromatic SED Fitting of the 3D-HST Survey (2018, background): “The handful of galaxies with individual detections in Herschel IR photometry show that the L8 μm/LIR ratio has a scatter of a factor of ∼2, with a tail toward higher values of L8 μm/LIR in systems with SFR100Me yr−1 (Elbaz et al. 2011; Wuyts et al. 2011a).”
• Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – V. Tracing changes in star formation rate and metallicity out to separations of 80 kpc (2012, background): “Both SFR and metallicity are known to have strong mass dependences (Tremonti et al. 2004; Ellison et al. 2008a; Noeske et al. 2007; Elbaz et al. 2011), but as pair galaxies and their controls are tightly matched in mass, a comparison to the matched control galaxies is effectively a comparison at…”
• THE KMOS3D SURVEY: DESIGN, FIRST RESULTS, AND THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXY KINEMATICS FROM 0.7 ⩽ z ⩽ 2.7 (2014, background): “At z ∼ 2 two galaxies are detected significantly above the MS, both of which are compact, consistent with expectations for star-bursting activity (Wuyts et al. 2011a; Bournaud et al. 2011; Elbaz et al. 2011) and are not classified as disks by the above criteria.”
• The star formation main sequence and stellar mass assembly of galaxies in the Illustris simulation (2014, background): “The relation exists at both low (z < 1; Brinchmann et al. 2004; Salim et al. 2007) and high (z & 1; Daddi et al. 2007) redshift and is recovered in optical, infrared (Elbaz et al. 2011) and radio observations (Karim et al. 2011).”