The applicability of far-infrared fine-structure lines as star formation rate tracers over wide ranges of metallicities and galaxy types

By I. Looze, D. Cormier, V. Lebouteiller, S. Madden, Maarten Baes, G. Bendo, M. Boquien, A. Boselli, D. Clements, L. Cortese and 12 more. 2014

269 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aims. We analyze the applicability of far-infrared fine-structure lines [Cii] 158 μm, [Oi] 63 μm, and [Oiii] 88 μm to reliably trace the star formation rate (SFR) in a sample of low-metallicity dwarf galaxies from the Herschel Dwarf Galaxy Survey and, furthermore, extend the analysis to a broad sample of galaxies of various types and metallicities in the literature. Methods. We study the trends and scatter in the relation between the SFR (as traced by GALEX FUV and MIPS 24 μm) and far-infrared line emission, on spatially resolved and global galaxy scales, in dwarf galaxies. We assemble far-infrared line measurements from the literature and infer whether the far-infrared lines can probe the SFR (as traced by the total infrared luminosity) in a variety of galaxy populations. Results. In metal-poor dwarfs, the [Oi]_(63) and [Oiii]_(88) lines show the strongest correlation with the SFR with an uncertainty on the SFR estimates better than a factor of 2, while the link between [Cii] emission and the SFR is more dispersed (uncertainty factor of 2.6). The increased scatter in the SFR–L_([CII]) relation toward low metal abundances, warm dust temperatures, and large filling factors of diffuse, highly ionized gas suggests that other cooling lines start to dominate depending on the density and ionization state of the gas. For the literature sample, we evaluate the correlations for a number of different galaxy populations. The [Cii] and [Oi]_(63) lines are considered to be reliable SFR tracers in starburst galaxies, recovering the star formation activity within an uncertainty of factor 2. For sources with composite and active galactic nucleus (AGN) classifications, all three FIR lines can recover the SFR with an uncertainty factor of 2.3. The SFR calibrations for ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) are similar to starbursts/AGNs in terms of scatter but offset from the starburst/AGN SFR relations because of line deficits relative to their total infrared luminosity. While the number of detections of the FIR fine-structure lines is still very limited at high redshift for [Oi]_(63) and [Oiii]_(88), we provide an SFR calibration for [Cii].

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4125a8b54cd9d0da05104e006c0d67e5689a332b

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Citations in the corpus

The ALPINE-ALMA [CII] survey (2020, methodology): “It also broadly traces star formation activity, offering an important window on galaxy formation (Carilli & Walter 2013; De Looze et al. 2014).”
RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (2019, background): “These telescopes (primarily ALMA) have detected high-redshift galaxies by their infrared continuum dust emission (Capak et al. 2015) as well as spectral lines [C ii] 158µm and [O iii] 88µm, which trace star formation (De Looze et al. 2014).”
The Herschel Dwarf Galaxy Survey - I. Properties of the low-metallicity ISM from PACS spectroscopy (2015, methodology): “Calibrating the FIR lines as star formation rate tracers is done in De Looze et al. (2014a).”
An ALMA [C ii] Survey of 27 Quasars at z > 5.94 (2018, methodology): “Because of its intimate connection with the cooling of the ISM, [C II] can also be used as a tracer of star formation (e.g., De Looze et al. 2014; Herrera-Camus et al. 2015).”
Pōniuā‘ena: A Luminous z = 7.5 Quasar Hosting a 1.5 Billion Solar Mass Black Hole (2020, methodology): “Applying the relation between star formation rate (SFR) and L[CII] for high-redshift (z > 0.5) galaxies from De Looze et al. (2014) which has a systematic uncertainty of a factor of ∼2.5, we obtain SFR[CII] ∼ 80 − 520M yr−1.”
Detection of the Far-infrared [O iii] and Dust Emission in a Galaxy at Redshift 8.312: Early Metal Enrichment in the Heart of the Reionization Era (2018, methodology): “This ( [ ]L SFRO III )-to-metallicity relation is calibrated by ISO, Herschel, and AKARI observations of local dwarfs and spirals (Brauher et al. 2008; Kawada et al. 2011; Madden et al. 2013; De Looze et al. 2014; Cormier et al. 2015).”
Big Three Dragons: A z = 7.15 Lyman-break galaxy detected in [O iii] 88 μm, [C ii] 158 μm, and dust continuum with ALMA (2018, methodology): “In the outflow scenario where we translate ∆vLyα as the outflow velocity, given the correlation between the SFR and the [Cii] luminosity (e.g., De Looze et al. 2014; Matthee et al. 2017; Carniani et al. 2018b; Herrera-Camus et al. 2018) or the UV luminosity, the middle and right panels of Figure 10…”
Very extended cold gas, star formation and outflows in the halo of a bright QSO at z>6 (2014, background): “…[C ii] emission Article published by EDP Sciences A14, page 1 of 21 is commonly associated with star formation (e.g. Sargsyan et al. 2014; De Looze et al. 2014), the large variety of physical conditions in which C+ can be produced and excited keeps its interpretation from being…”
A Herschel/PACS Far-infrared Line Emission Survey of Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies (2017, background): “…of the trends than a power-law fit, as it is known that the line to FIR ratios do not increase indefinitely at the lower end of the Tdust distribution and IR luminosities (e.g., Malhotra et al. 1997, 2001; Brauher et al. 2008; De Looze et al. 2014; Cormier et al. 2015; Herrera-Camus et al. 2015).”
The assembly of ‘normal’ galaxies at z ∼ 7 probed by ALMA (2015, background): “For many of the low metallicity galaxies in the sample of De Looze et al. (2014) the L([CII])/SFR ratio tends to be even higher than in normal galaxies (this is mostly a consequence of [CII] being a coolant of the ISM), however at very low metallicities (Z < 0.1 Z ) the L([CII])/SFR start to…”