Herschel unveils a puzzling uniformity of distant dusty galaxies

By D. Elbaz, H. Hwang, B. Magnelli, E. Daddi, H. Aussel, B. Altieri, A. Amblard, P. Andreani, V. Arumugam, R. Auld and 99 more. 2010

182 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The Herschel Space Observatory enables us to accurately measure the bolometric output of starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN) by directly sampling the peak of their far-infrared (IR) emission. Here we examine whether the spectral energy distribution (SED) and dust temperature of galaxies have strongly evolved over the last 80% of the age of the Universe. We discuss possible consequences for the determination of starformation rates (SFR) and any evidence for a major change in their star-formation properties. We use Herschel deep extragalactic surveys from 100 to 500 μm to compute total IR luminosities in galaxies down to the faintest levels, using PACS and SPIRE in the GOODS-North field (PEP and HerMES key programs). An extension to fainter luminosities is done by stacking images on 24 μm prior positions. We show that measurements in the SPIRE bands can be used below the statistical confusion limit if information at higher spatial resolution is used, e.g. at 24 μm, to identify “isolated” galaxies whose flux is not boosted by bright neighbors. Below z ~ 1.5, mid-IR extrapolations are correct for star-forming galaxies with a dispersion of only 40% (0.15 dex), therefore similar to z ~ 0 galaxies, over three decades in luminosity below the regime of ultra-luminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs, L_(IR) ≥ 10^(12) L_⊙). This narrow distribution is puzzling when considering the range of physical processes that could have affected the SED of these galaxies. Extrapolations from only one of the 160 μm, 250 μm or 350 μm bands alone tend to overestimate the total IR luminosity. This may be explained by the lack of far-IR constraints around and above ~150 μm (rest-frame) before Herschel on those templates. We also note that the dust temperature of luminous IR galaxies (LIRGs, L_(IR) ≥ 10^(11) L_⊙) around z ~ 1 is mildly colder by 10–15% than their local analogs and up to 20% for ULIRGs at z ~ 1.6 (using a single modified blackbody-fit to the peak far-IR emission with an emissivity index of β = 1.5). Above z = 1.5, distant galaxies are found to exhibit a substantially larger mid- over far-IR ratio, which could either result from stronger broad emission lines or warm dust continuum heated by a hidden AGN. Two thirds of the AGNs identified in the field with a measured redshift exhibit the same behavior as purely star-forming galaxies. Hence a large fraction of AGNs harbor coeval star formation at very high SFR and in conditions similar to purely star-forming galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/37c0ca6e7bc37982506fa996be0504ecdd0cb84f

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Citations in the corpus

REGULARITY UNDERLYING COMPLEXITY: A REDSHIFT-INDEPENDENT DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTINUOUS VARIATION OF GALAXY-SCALE MOLECULAR GAS PROPERTIES IN THE MASS-STAR FORMATION RATE PLANE (2013, unknown): “The SFRs of the galaxies at z∼ 1 and 2 are based on 24µm and UV observations, respectively, and are known to compare well on average with other tracers including Herschel-based SFR measurements (Daddi et al. 2007a, Elbaz et al. 2010, Reddy et al. 2012).”
The Herschel* PEP/HerMES luminosity function - I. Probing the evolution of PACS selected Galaxies to z ≃ 4 (2013, background): “…due to the scarcity of Spitzer galaxies at z>2, the large spectral extrapolations to derive the total IR luminosity from the mid-IR (see e.g. Elbaz et al. 2010, Nordon et al. 2010 and Nordon et al. 2012 for descriptions of the failure, at least at z>1.5, of previous total IR luminosity…”
A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, methodology): “…that estimates using only one SPIRE band and templates based on local star-forming galaxies can substantially overestima e LIR for z < 1.5 (Elbaz et al. 2010; Nordon et al. 2012) due to the possible lower dust temperature (e.g. Dale & Helou 2002; Pope et al. 2006) that was not accounted…”
A Herschel view of the far-infrared properties of submillimetre galaxies (2012, methodology): “…also agrees with the fact that the overestimate of the infrared luminosity by the MIPS-24µm flux density and the CE01 SED library occurs atz > 1.5, i.e., when the MIPS-24µm passband starts probing rest-frame wavelengths dominated by PAH emission (Nordon et al. 2010, 2012; Elbaz et al. 2010, 2011).”
The incidence of obscuration in active galactic nuclei (2013, methodology): “As it was shown by Elbaz et al. (2010, 2011), scaling the FIR templates to match a monochromatic luminosity provides robust (and non-degenerate) estimates of the total FIR luminosity, and thus of the SFR.”
Panchromatic spectral energy distributions of Herschel sources (2013, background): “2. fit of FIR SEDs with the Chary & Elbaz (2001, CE01) luminosity-dependent template library (see also Nordon et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2010; Hwang et al. 2010).”
PACS Evolutionary Probe (PEP) – a Herschel key program (2011, background): “This is in line with the encompassing SED studies of Elbaz et al. (2010) and Hwang et al. (2010) which, combining PEP and HerMES as well as local Akari data, found that this overprediction by 24µm extrapolation sets in at z∼1.5, and that the FIR SED temperatures of high z galaxies are modestly…”
A deep ALMA image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2016, background): “…for example rest-frame UV luminosity), as expected from the ‘main sequence’ of star-forming galaxies (e.g. Noeske et al. 2007; Daddi et al. 2007; Elbaz et al. 2010; Micha lowski et al. 2012b; Roseboom et al. 2013; Speagle et al. 2014; Koprowski et al. 2014, 2016; Renzini & Peng 2015;…”
GOODS-Herschel: the far-infrared view of star formation in active galactic nucleus host galaxies since z ≈ 3 (2011, background): “These SEDs, when combined with the monochromatic luminosities measured by the 100µm and 160µm Herschel-PACS bands, have been shown to provide reliable estimates ofLIR at the redshifts considered here (e.g., Elbaz et al. 2010).”
Deriving Physical Properties from Broadband Photometry with Prospector: Description of the Model and a Demonstration of its Accuracy Using 129 Galaxies in the Local Universe (2016, methodology): “It is likely that full-SED modeling with MIR photometry can tighten the 8 μm/LIR relationship (Elbaz et al. 2010, 2011), and thus refine SFR estimates, by including constraints from optical–IR energy conservation.”
GALAXY STRUCTURE AND MODE OF STAR FORMATION IN THE SFR–MASS PLANE FROM z ∼ 2.5 TO z ∼ 0.1 (2011, background): “This conversion leads to a consistency between 24 µm and PACS-derived LIR, unlike locally calibrated template sets that have been proven to overestimate the LIR of z & 2 galaxies based on their rest-frame 8 µm emission (Nordon et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2010; Wuyts et al. 2011).”
GOODS–Herschel: an infrared main sequence for star-forming galaxies (2011, methodology): “…MIPS-70µm and 160µm stacking (Daddi et al. 2007a, Papovich et al. 2007, Magnelli et al. 2011) has recently been confirmed with Herschelby Nordon et al. (2010) on a small sample ofz∼2 galaxies detected with PACS and by stacking PACS images on 24µm priors (Elbaz et al. 2010, Nordon et al. 2010).”
The deepest Herschel-PACS far-infrared survey: number counts and infrared luminosity functions from combined PEP/GOODS-H observations (2013, background): “…luminosity functions of galaxies (e.g., Gruppioni et al. 2010, 2013; Casey et al. 2012) and the examination of their spectral energy distributions (e.g., Hwang et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2010, 2011; Nordon et al. 2010, 2012; Magnelli et al. 2010, 2012; Symeonidis et al. 2013; Berta et al. 2013).”
GOODS-Herschel: dust attenuation properties of UV selected high redshift galaxies (2012, methodology): “The validity of Dale & Helou (2002) templates for measuring total IR luminosities of sources detected by Herschel is confirmed by the studies of Elbaz et al. (2010, 2011).”
VALIDATION OF THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL FOR GALAXY EVOLUTION TO z ∼ 3 THROUGH MOLECULAR GAS AND DUST OBSERVATIONS OF LENSED STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, methodology): “…Herschel observations in the wavelength range of 70-500µm with the PACS and SPIRE instruments have further contributed, by providing direct calorimetric SFRs that have been used to improve and recalibrate other indicators (e.g. Nordon et al. 2010, 2012; Elbaz et al. 2010; Wuyts et al. 2011a).”
ON STAR FORMATION RATES AND STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES OUT TO z ∼ 3 (2011, methodology): “Combining PACS and SPIRE data, Elbaz et al. (2010) found that the total IR luminosity (LIR ≡ L(8 − 1000 µm)) can be derived reliably from a single PACS band.”
The extragalactic background light revisited and the cosmic photon–photon opacity (Corrigendum) (2017, result): “Elbaz et al. (2010) and Rodighiero et al. (2010) found, in particular, that the highest-luminosity galaxies over a wide redshift interval have a relatively lower IR luminosity with respect to previous estimates.”
PHIBSS: Unified Scaling Relations of Gas Depletion Time and Molecular Gas Fractions (2017, background): “…gas fractions, and metallicities as a function of redshift, with only modest changes as compared to z=0 MS-star formation physics (e.g. Elmegreen et al. 2009, Krumholz & Dekel 2010, Elbaz et al. 2010, 2011, Gracia-Carpio et al. 2011, Nordon et al. 2012, Lilly et al. 2013, Peng & Maiolino 2014).”
The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey: HerMES (2012, methodology): “Our first results on exploration of the full FIR SED are given by Elbaz et al. (2010), Rowan-Robinson et al. (2010), Hwang et al. (2010) and Chapman et al. (2010).”