Optical Star Formation Rate Indicators

By John Moustakas, Robert C. Kennicutt Jr., Christy A. Tremonti. 2005

252 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using integrated optical spectrophotometry for 412 star-forming galaxies at z ~ 0, and fiber-aperture spectrophotometry for 120,846 SDSS galaxies at z ~ 0.1, we investigate the Hα λ6563, Hβ λ4861, [O II] λ3727, and [O III] λ5007 nebular emission lines and the U-band luminosity as quantitative star formation rate (SFR) indicators. We demonstrate that the extinction-corrected Hα λ6563 luminosity is a reliable SFR tracer even in highly obscured star-forming galaxies. We find that variations in dust reddening dominate the systematic uncertainty in SFRs derived from the observed Hβ, [O II], and U-band luminosities, producing a factor of ~1.7, ~2.5, and ~2.1 scatter in the mean transformations, respectively. We show that [O II] depends weakly on variations in oxygen abundance over a wide range in metallicity, 12 + log(O/H) = 8.15-8.7 (Z/Z☉ = 0.28-1.0), and that in this metallicity interval galaxies occupy a narrow range in ionization parameter (-3.8 ≲ log U ≲ -2.9). We show that the scatter in [O III] λ5007 as a SFR indicator is a factor of 3-4 due to its sensitivity to metal abundance and ionization. We develop empirical SFR calibrations for Hβ and [O II] parameterized in terms of the B-band luminosity, which remove the systematic effects of reddening and metallicity and reduce the SFR scatter to ±40% and ±90%, respectively, although individual galaxies may deviate substantially from the median relations. Finally, we compare the z ~ 0 relations between blue luminosity and reddening, ionization, and [O II]/Hα ratio against measurements at z ~ 1 and find broad agreement. We emphasize, however, that optical emission-line measurements including Hα for larger samples of intermediate- and high-redshift galaxies are needed to test the applicability of our locally derived SFR calibrations to distant galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5774b09fd3816c6dc9101ea847bc8ba0fd834931

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Citations in the corpus

COMPARISON OF Hα AND UV STAR FORMATION RATES IN THE LOCAL VOLUME: SYSTEMATIC DISCREPANCIES FOR DWARF GALAXIES (2009, background): “…the average amount of nebular extinction in galaxies is supported by studies that have shown that the scatter between infrared-based SFRs and Hα SFRs is decreased when the Hα luminosity is corrected for extinction in this manner (e.g., Dopita et al. 2002; Kewley et al. 2002; Moustakas et al. 2006).”
The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the role of galaxy environment in the cosmic star formation history (2007, methodology): “Table 4 lists the coefficients from linear–regression fits to the dependence of mean SFR (and sSFR) on overdensity in the SDSS–”
AN ATLAS OF GALAXY SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS FROM THE ULTRAVIOLET TO THE MID-INFRARED (2013, background): “…of nearby galaxies (many of which use data that we have now incorporated into this paper), including measurements of star formation rates (e.g., Moustakas et al. 2006; Kennicutt et al. 2009), fitting or modeling the mid-infrared spectra (e.g., Smith et al. 2007b; Inami et al. 2013; Stierwalt…”
Target Selection and Validation of DESI Emission Line Galaxies (2022, background): “…the emission lines in the spectrum, with no need to detect the continuum in a significant way—in particular, the [O II] doublet λλ 3726,29 Å offers an unambiguous signature of the zspec (see, for instance, Moustakas et al. 2006 for the link between the [O II] line strength and the star formation).”
ONGOING AND CO-EVOLVING STAR FORMATION IN zCOSMOS GALAXIES HOSTING ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2008, methodology): “For compatibility with the star formation rate calibration of Moustakas et al. (2006) implemented in subsequent sections, we convert all masses to an equivalent based upon a Salpeter IMF by applying a multiplicative factor of 1.7 (Pozzetti et al. 2007).”
AN ULTRA-DEEP NEAR-INFRARED SPECTRUM OF A COMPACT QUIESCENT GALAXY AT z = 2.2 (2009, background): “However, at low redshift there is a strong correlation between the dustcorrected luminosity of Hα and the bolometric luminosity (e.g., Moustakas et al. 2006).”
DUST-CORRECTED STAR FORMATION RATES OF GALAXIES. II. COMBINATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET AND INFRARED TRACERS (2011, background): “15) were removed, (3) galaxies classified as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or AGN-starburst composites (c.f. Moustakas et al. 2006; Kewley et al. 2001; Kauffmann et al. 2003) were excluded, and (4) galaxies with lower than 3σ detections at 25µm were removed.”
THE GRISM LENS-AMPLIFIED SURVEY FROM SPACE (GLASS). I. SURVEY OVERVIEW AND FIRST DATA RELEASE (2015, background): “Hα is considered the best optical indicator of the current star formation rate, as it is much less affected by dust extinction and metallicity effects than [O II] (Kennicutt 1998; Moustakas et al. 2006).”
Validation of the Scientific Program for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (2023, unknown): “These galaxies exhibit strong nebular emission lines originating in the ionized H II regions surrounding short-lived, but luminous, massive stars (e.g. Moustakas et al. 2006).”
DWARF GALAXIES WITH OPTICAL SIGNATURES OF ACTIVE MASSIVE BLACK HOLES (2013, background): “Star-forming galaxies with H II-region-like spectra occupy the left-most plume of galaxies, with lower-metallicity systems having higher [O III]/Hβ ratios and lower [N II]/Hα ratios (e.g., Moustakas et al. 2006).”
Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, methodology): “The Balmer decrement method for estimating dust attenuation breaks down badly, however in circumnuclear starbursts or other dusty galaxies (e.g., Moustakas et al. 2006).”
On the Normalization of the Cosmic Star Formation History (2006, background): “Issues regarding SFR calibr - tions are detailed in Moustakas et al. (2006), Kennicutt (1998) and Condon (1992).”
DUST-CORRECTED STAR FORMATION RATES OF GALAXIES. I. COMBINATIONS OF Hα AND INFRARED TRACERS (2009, methodology): “The calibration and reliability of the [O ii] feature as a quantitative SFR tracer has been discussed by several authors (e.g., Hopkins et al. 2003; Kewley et al. 2004; Moustakas et al. 2006).”
Inferring the star formation histories of massive quiescent galaxies with bagpipes: evidence for multiple quenching mechanisms (2017, background): “We also demonstrate that the range of metallicities and ionization parameters measured by Moustakas et al. (2006) for local galaxies would be correctly reproduced by our models.”
The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments (2014, background): “…shifts the data parallel to the diagonal lines, is ∼ 0.3 dex (Conroy et al. 2009; Behroozi et al. 2010; Pforr et al. 2012; Mitchell et al. 2013) and the systematic error in the star formation rate, which shifts the data vertically, is likely to be at least as large (e.g. Moustakas et al. 2006).”