THE RELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND STELLAR MASS FOR GALAXIES AT 3.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 6.5 IN CANDELS

By B. Salmon, C. Papovich, S. Finkelstein, V. Tilvi, K. Finlator, P. Behroozi, T. Dahlén, R. Dav'e, A. Dekel, Mark Dickinson and 8 more. 2014

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Distant star-forming galaxies show a correlation between their star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses, and this has deep implications for galaxy formation. Here, we present a study on the evolution of the slope and scatter of the SFR–stellar mass relation for galaxies at 3.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 6.5 using multi-wavelength photometry in GOODS-S from the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and Spitzer Extended Deep Survey. We describe an updated, Bayesian spectral-energy distribution fitting method that incorporates effects of nebular line emission, star formation histories that are constant or rising with time, and different dust-attenuation prescriptions (starburst and Small Magellanic Cloud). From z = 6.5 to z = 3.5 star-forming galaxies in CANDELS follow a nearly unevolving correlation between stellar mass and SFR that follows SFR ∼ with a =0.54 ± 0.16 at z ∼ 6 and 0.70 ± 0.21 at z ∼ 4. This evolution requires a star formation history that increases with decreasing redshift (on average, the SFRs of individual galaxies rise with time). The observed scatter in the SFR–stellar mass relation is tight, σ(log SFR/M☉ yr−1) < 0.3–0.4 dex, for galaxies with log M⋆/M☉ > 9 dex. Assuming that the SFR is tied to the net gas inflow rate (SFR ∼ ), then the scatter in the gas inflow rate is also smaller than 0.3−0.4 dex for star-forming galaxies in these stellar mass and redshift ranges, at least when averaged over the timescale of star formation. We further show that the implied star formation history of objects selected on the basis of their co-moving number densities is consistent with the evolution in the SFR–stellar mass relation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/61093d0c50a31c84a2d0cc97cea2642cf300ccc6

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Citations in the corpus

UniverseMachine: The correlation between galaxy growth and dark matter halo assembly from z = 0−10 (2018, background): “More reasonable typical SFHs of t2 (Papovich et al. 2011; Behroozi et al. 2013e; Salmon et al. 2015) would result in 0.3 dex larger inferred masses at a given UV luminosity (see top panel).”
The COSMOS2015 galaxy stellar mass function . Thirteen billion years of stellar mass assembly in ten snapshots (2017, methodology): “In general, SED fitting stellar masses are less sensitive to this bias when a large number of bands are used (Whitaker et al. 2014), especially when the estimates are derived through a Bayesian approach rather than best-fit templates (Salmon et al. 2015).”
Spectroscopic detection of C iv λ1548 in a galaxy at z = 7.045: implications for the ionizing spectra of reionization-era galaxies (2015, background): “The UV luminosities, star formation rates, and stellar masses tend to be lower at z ' 6 (e.g. Smit et al. 2012; McLure et al. 2013; Schenker et al. 2013b; Bouwens et al. 2014a; Salmon et al. 2015; Duncan et al. c© 2015 RAS ar X iv :1 50 4.”
The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z = 4 to the present day (2014, background): “In particular, it could be that the tight scatter of the main sequence observed at high redshift (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2012; Salmon et al. 2015) is not real but induced by the use of such SFRs, thereby questioning the very existence of a main sequence at these epochs.”
THE COSMOS2015 CATALOG: EXPLORING THE 1 < z < 6 UNIVERSE WITH HALF A MILLION GALAXIES (2016, methodology): “…at 0 < z < 2 (e.g Daddi et al. 2007) is reproduced in hydrodynamical simulations and is now shown to exist up to z ∼ 6.5 (e.g Steinhardt et al. 2014; Salmon et al. 2015) and down to logM/M ∼ 9.4 (Kochiashvili et al. 2015) , although the different methods used to compute the stellar mass and…”
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY STELLAR MASS FUNCTION AT z = 4–8: A STEEPENING LOW-MASS-END SLOPE WITH INCREASING REDSHIFT (2015, methodology): “Our estimates of the stellar mass density at z = 4–5 are in broad agreement with previous measurements within the uncertainty, with the exception of Caputi et al. (2011) at z = 5 and Duncan et al. (2014) at z = 4.”
STELLAR MASSES FROM THE CANDELS SURVEY: THE GOODS-SOUTH AND UDS FIELDS (2014, methodology): “Method 4b: the strength of the Hβ line is computed from the number of ionizing photons for a given age and metallicity assuming Case B recombination and null escape fraction, and line ratios for 119 lines are taken from the Cloudy models of Inoue (2011; see Salmon et al. 2015); 2.”
Extended Lyman α haloes around individual high-redshift galaxies revealed by MUSE (2015, background): “If we assume that these galaxies form stars with specific star formation rates in broad agreement with the cosmic average at those redshifts (e.g. Ilbert et al. 2013; Salmon et al. 2015), we predict stellar masses in the range of ∼108–109 M .”
MUFASA: Galaxy Formation Simulations With Meshless Hydrodynamics (2016, methodology): “At z = 1, 2 we show data from 3D-HST with Spitzer 24µm information by Whitaker et al. (2014), and at z = 4 from CANDELS by Salmon et al. (2015).”
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALAXY REST-FRAME ULTRAVIOLET LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OVER THE FIRST TWO BILLION YEARS (2014, methodology): “Given that our assumed SFH was derived from brighter galaxies (Salmon et al. 2015), the slight underprediction at the faint end is not surprising.”
MORPHOLOGIES OF ∼190,000 GALAXIES AT z = 0–10 REVEALED WITH HST LEGACY DATA. I. SIZE EVOLUTION (2015, background): “Similar flat slopes are reported by a large survey area of the CANDELS fields (Stark et al. 2009; Lee et al. 2011; Salmon et al. 2015).”