The Properties of Ultraviolet-luminous Galaxies at the Current Epoch

By T. Heckman, C. Hoopes, M. Seibert, D. C. Martin, S. Salim, R. Rich, G. Kauffmann, S. Charlot, T. Barlow, L. Bianchi and 17 more. 2004

141 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We have used the first matched set of Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data to investigate the properties of a sample of 74 nearby (z < 0.3) galaxies with far-ultraviolet luminosities greater than 2 × 1010 L☉, chosen to overlap the luminosity range of typical high-z Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). GALEX deep surveys have shown that ultraviolet-luminous galaxies (UVLGs) similar to these are the fastest evolving component of the UV galaxy population. Model fits to the combined GALEX and SDSS photometry yield typical FUV extinctions in UVLGs of 0.5-2 mag (similar to LBGs and less luminous GALEX-selected galaxies). The implied star formation rates are SFR ~ 3-30 M☉ yr-1. This overlaps the range of SFRs for LBGs. We find a strong inverse correlation between galaxy mass and FUV surface brightness, and on this basis we divide the sample into "large" and "compact" UVLGs. The large UVLGs are relatively massive (M* ~ 1011 M☉) late-type disk galaxies forming stars at a rate similar to their past average (M*/SFR ~ tHubble). They are metal rich (approximately solar), have intermediate optical-UV colors (FUV - r ~ 2-3), and about a third host a type 2 (obscured) active galactic nucleus. In contrast, the compact UVLGs have half-light radii of a few kpc or less (similar to LBGs ). They are relatively low-mass galaxies (M* ~ 1010 M☉) with typical velocity dispersions of 60-150 km s-1. They span a range in metallicity from ~0.3 to 1 times solar, have blue optical-UV colors (FUV - r ~ 0.5-2), and are forming stars at a rate sufficient to build the present galaxy in ~1-2 Gyr. In all these respects they appear similar to the LBG population. These "living fossils" may therefore provide an opportunity for detailed investigation of the physical processes occurring in typical star-forming galaxies in the early universe.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1e67cf6ad00cc92be8375456b0cca7ffde5dddf0

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The UV-Optical Color Magnitude Diagram. II. Physical Properties and Morphological Evolution On and Off of a Star-forming Sequence (2007, background): “This extreme part of the diagram is occupied by ultralumininous infrared galaxies and ultraviolet luminous galaxies (UVLGs; Heckman et al. 2005; Hoopes et al. 2006), although these populations are rare and will not contribute significantly to the weighted mean.”
THE ORIGIN AND OPTICAL DEPTH OF IONIZING RADIATION IN THE “GREEN PEA” GALAXIES (2013, background): “The Green Pea sample overlaps with other nearby samples of galaxies, selected on the basis of high Balmer line equivalent widths (Shim & Chary 2012) or high UV surface brightness (Heckman et al. 2005).”
THE MULTIPHASE STRUCTURE AND POWER SOURCES OF GALACTIC WINDS IN MAJOR MERGERS (2013, background): “However, the compact star formation in ULIRGs is heavily obscured and occurs amid massive reservoirs of dense gas, while the Lyman-break analogs and z ∼ 0.6 compact starbursts are UV-luminous and relatively unobscured (Heckman et al. 2005; Overzier et al. 2009; Diamond-Stanic et al. 2012).”
THE SYSTEMATIC PROPERTIES OF THE WARM PHASE OF STARBURST-DRIVEN GALACTIC WINDS (2015, methodology): “…used to define the parent sample were a K-corrected GALEX-based FUV luminosity LFUV > 10 10.3 L⊙ and a GALEX based FUV effective surface-brightness IFUV(= 1/2LFUV/πr 2 50) > 10 9 L⊙kpc −2, where r50 was the seeing-deconvolved SDSS u-band half-light radius (Heckman et al. 2005; Hoopes et al. 2007).”
Galaxy Zoo Green Peas: discovery of a class of compact extremely star-forming galaxies (2009, methodology): “The three star-forming galaxies were imaged as part of a study of local UV-luminous galaxies (Heckman et al. 2005; Overzier et al. 2008).”
THE KILOPARSEC-SCALE KINEMATICS OF HIGH-REDSHIFT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2009, background): “Perhaps the best analog of these highredshift galaxies that has been found to date however is the supercompact subsample of UV-luminous galaxies (ScUVLGs) discovered using GALEX (Heckman et al. 2005).”
The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies (2006, background): “Heckman et al. (2005) have recently shown that galaxies with FUV luminosities brighter than 2 ; 1010 L (7:6 ; 10 36 W or MFUV ¼ 19:87) (also known as ultraviolet-luminous galaxies or UVLGs) are extremely rare in our local universe.”
VLT/VIMOS integral field spectroscopy of luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies: 2D kinematic properties (2013, unknown): “While low-z (U)LIRGs represent extreme IR-luminous, dusty starbursts in our nearby universe, other type of galaxies, th UVluminous (i.e., LBA, Heckman et al. 2005), represent the class of (almost) extinction-free starbursts, showing SFRs similar to those of some local LIRGs (see Table 3).”
THE GREAT OBSERVATORIES ALL-SKY LIRG SURVEY: COMPARISON OF ULTRAVIOLET AND FAR-INFRARED PROPERTIES (2010, background): “The sample of Heckman et al. (2005) is divided into Large UVLGs and Compact UVLGs, which have mass ranges of 10.5 ≤ log(Mstellar/M⊙) ≤ 11.1 and 9.5 ≤ log(Mstellar/M⊙) ≤ 10.7 respectively, SFR ranges of 0.6 ≤ log( SFR M⊙yr−1 ) ≤ 1.2 and 0.6 ≤ log( SFR M⊙yr−1 ) ≤ 1.4 respectively, and SSFR ranges of…”
The Morphological Diversities among Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshifts in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (2006, background): “The half-light radii of LBGs atz> 2.5 (Ferguson et al. 2004) is on average about 1/3 of that observed for local UV luminous galaxies (Heckman et al. 2005).”
OBSERVATIONS OF STARBURST GALAXIES WITH FAR-ULTRAVIOLET SPECTROGRAPHIC EXPLORER: GALACTIC FEEDBACK IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE (2009, background): “Locally, these starbursts alone account for roughly 20% of the high-mass star formation and 10% of the radiant energy production (Heckman et al. 2005).”
Lyman-α spectral properties of five newly discovered Lyman continuum emitters (2016, methodology): “The LBAs were selected from the GALEX catalogue for their far-UV luminosity, high surface brightness, and compactness (Heckman et al. 2005).”
EXTREME FEEDBACK AND THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: CLUES IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE (2011, background): “These LBAs are a very rare population of local galaxies that strongly resemble the high-z Lyman Break galaxies (Heckman et al. 2005; Hoopes et al. 2007; Overzier at al.”
Star Formation in the Nearby Universe: The Ultraviolet and Infrared Points of View (2006, background): “We make a final comment on the so-called “UV luminous galaxies” (UVLGs, defined as those with LFUV ≥ 2 × 1010 L⊙ in Heckman et al. 2005).”