THE CALIBRATION OF MONOCHROMATIC FAR-INFRARED STAR FORMATION RATE INDICATORS

By D. Calzetti, S. -. Wu, Sungryong Hong, Robert C. Kennicutt Jr., Janice C. Lee, D. Dale, C. Engelbracht, L. V. Zee, B. Draine, C. Hao and 16 more. 2010

256 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spitzer data at 24, 70, and 160 μm and ground-based Hα images are analyzed for a sample of 189 nearby star-forming and starburst galaxies to investigate whether reliable star formation rate (SFR) indicators can be defined using the monochromatic infrared dust emission centered at 70 and 160 μm. We compare recently published recipes for SFR measures using combinations of the 24 μm and observed Hα luminosities with those using 24 μm luminosity alone. From these comparisons, we derive a reference SFR indicator for use in our analysis. Linear correlations between SFR and the 70 μm and 160 μm luminosity are found for L(70) ≳ 1.4 × 1042 erg s−1 and L(160) ≳ 2 × 1042 erg s−1, corresponding to SFR ≳ 0.1–0.3 M☉ yr−1, and calibrations of SFRs based on L(70) and L(160) are proposed. Below those two luminosity limits, the relation between SFR and 70 μm (160 μm) luminosity is nonlinear and SFR calibrations become problematic. A more important limitation is the dispersion of the data around the mean trend, which increases for increasing wavelength. The scatter of the 70 μm (160 μm) data around the mean is about 25% (factor ∼2) larger than the scatter of the 24 μm data. We interpret this increasing dispersion as an effect of the increasing contribution to the infrared emission of dust heated by stellar populations not associated with the current star formation. Thus, the 70 (160) μm luminosity can be reliably used to trace SFRs in large galaxy samples, but will be of limited utility for individual objects, with the exception of infrared-dominated galaxies. The nonlinear relation between SFR and the 70 and 160 μm emission at faint galaxy luminosities suggests a variety of mechanisms affecting the infrared emission for decreasing luminosity, such as increasing transparency of the interstellar medium, decreasing effective dust temperature, and decreasing filling factor of star-forming regions across the galaxy. In all cases, the calibrations hold for galaxies with oxygen abundance higher than roughly 12 +log(O/H) ∼ 8.1. At lower metallicity, the infrared luminosity no longer reliably traces the SFR because galaxies are less dusty and more transparent.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7ca73add3f4fd9029dc8410db230337a22ed2412

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

A z = 0 Multiwavelength Galaxy Synthesis. I. A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies (2019, background): “Other studies have built on these works and considered larger populations of local galaxies, aiming for internal consistency among the available tracers (Calzetti et al. 2010; Hao et al. 2011).”
A CONSTANT MOLECULAR GAS DEPLETION TIME IN NEARBY DISK GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “Infrared emis- 12 Metallicities are adopted from Moustakas et al. (2010) where available and supplemented by data from the compilations in Calzetti et al. (2010) and Marble et al. (2010).”
DUST-CORRECTED STAR FORMATION RATES OF GALAXIES. II. COMBINATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET AND INFRARED TRACERS (2011, background): “This is well within the observed range for star-forming galaxies (c.f., Paper I; Calzetti et al. 2010).”
ESTIMATING THE STAR FORMATION RATE AT 1 kpc SCALES IN NEARBY GALAXIES (2012, methodology): “Note that the Calzetti et al. (2010) results are partially anchored to the Kennicutt et al. (2009) results, which we consider somewhat uncertain for these targets.”
THE EMISSION BY DUST AND STARS OF NEARBY GALAXIES IN THE HERSCHEL KINGFISH SURVEY (2011, methodology): “We use the calibration proposed by Calzetti et al. (2010), with scatter < 0.2 dex, for galaxies with a wide range of metallicities: SFR (M⊙/yr)= CHα [L(Hα)obs + a1L(24)] (5) if L(24) < 4× 1042 erg/s, = CHα [L(Hα)obs + a2L(24)] (6) if 4× 1042 ≤ L(24) < 5× 1043 erg/s where the luminosities are in…”
CALIBRATING EXTINCTION-FREE STAR FORMATION RATE DIAGNOSTICS WITH 33 GHz FREE–FREE EMISSION IN NGC 6946 (2011, methodology): “In fact, it has recently been shown by Calzetti et al. (2010) that the Hα + 24µm calibration used here, and derived for Hii regions, works well for local IR-bright starbursts.”
A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, background): “6 Speagle et al. Calzetti et al. (2010) for L –ψ conversions at 2 – 10 keV, 24µm, and 70µm, respectively, and Murphy et al. (2012) for an empirical comparison of the radio SFR calibration presented here.”
Evidence of Environmental Dependencies of Type Ia Supernovae from the Nearby Supernova Factory indicated by Local H$\alpha$ (2013, unknown): “5 of Calzetti et al. (2010).”
Modelling the spectral energy distribution of galaxies - V. The dust and PAH emission SEDs of disk galaxies (2010, background): “Indeed empirically studies have shown that of the Spitzer bands it is the 24µm band which is more closely related to star-formation (e.g. Calzetti et al. 2010).”
The applicability of far-infrared fine-structure lines as star formation rate tracers over wide ranges of metallicities and galaxy types (2014, background): “…fraction of the dust heating might, however, be attributed to more evolved stellar populations, making the link between FIR continuum emission and star formation more dispersed (Bendo et al. 2010; Calzetti et al. 2010; Boquien et al. 2011; Bendo et al. 2012a; Groves et al. 2012; Smith et al. 2012).”
The far-infrared/radio correlation as probed by Herschel (2010, background): “…and the use of measurements spanning the far-IR and radio wavebands to avoid assumptions relating to k corrections (Ivison et al. 2010), although Calzetti et al. (2010) have argued that bands beyond 24 μm contain a contribution from dust heated by stars from previous episodes of star formation…”
A remarkably flat relationship between the average star formation rate and AGN luminosity for distant X-ray AGN. (2015, methodology): “…of star formation, a significant advantage over more direct tracers, such as the UV and optical emission from the young massive stars, is that it does not suffer significantly from obscuration (e.g. Kennicutt 1998; Calzetti et al. 2007; Calzetti et al. 2010; see also section 2.2 in Lutz 2014).”
Investigations of dust heating in M81, M83 and NGC 2403 with the Herschel Space Observatory (2011, background): “However, similar analyses showed that the correlation betwe n optical/ultraviolet star formation tracers and either 70 or 160 µm emission was weaker (Calzetti et al. 2010), which implied that not all of the far-infrared emission originated from dust heated by star formation.”
MOLECULAR GAS AND STAR FORMATION IN NEARBY DISK GALAXIES (2013, background): “Calzetti et al. (2010) estimated disk-averaged ΣSFR for a large set of nearby galaxies.”
A MOLECULAR STAR FORMATION LAW IN THE ATOMIC-GAS-DOMINATED REGIME IN NEARBY GALAXIES (2011, background): “First, over whole galaxies, monochromatic IR emission at 24 µm and 70 µm does track the SFR (with some important variations among types of galaxy; see Calzetti et al. 2010).”
OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY AND NEBULAR OXYGEN ABUNDANCES OF THE SPITZER/SINGS GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…al. 2006; Bendo et al. 2007); and the development of robust global and spatially resolved optical and infrared (IR) star formation rate (SFR) diagnostics (Calzetti et al. 2005, 2007, 2010; Kennicutt et al. 2007, 2009; Boquien et al. 2009, 2010), among others.”
Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, methodology): “…have calibrated monochromatic SFR in- dices, usually tuned to one of the Spitzer or Herschel bands, including 24µm (e.g., Wu et al. 2005a; AlonsoHerrero et al. 2006; Calzetti et al. 2007; Relaño et al. 2007; Rieke et al. 2009, and references therein), and 70 and 160µm (Calzetti et al. 2010a).”
Star formation rates and efficiencies in the Galactic Centre (2017, background): “…uncertainties, for example: (i) leakage of high-energy photons (in which case the infrared luminosity is not equal to the total bolometric luminosity), (ii) heating of dust via other sources and (iii) emission produced from the older embedded population within the CMZ (e.g. Calzetti et al. 2010).”