Star formation history and dust content of galaxies drawn from ultraviolet surveys

By Xu Kong, S. Charlot, J. Brinchmann, S. M. Fall. 2003

236 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We compile a new sample of 115 nearby, non-Seyfert galaxies spanning a wide range of star formation activities, from starburst to nearly dormant, based on ultraviolet observations with various satellites. We combine these observations with infrared observations to study the relation between ratio of total far-infrared to ultraviolet luminosity and ultraviolet spectral slope (the IRX-UV relation). We show that, at fixed ultraviolet spectral slope, quiescent star-forming galaxies in our sample have systematically lower ratio of total far-infrared to ultraviolet luminosity than starburst galaxies. The strengths of spectral indices sensitive to star formation history, such as the 4000-A spectral discontinuity and the Ha emission equivalent width, correlate well with distance from the mean relation for starburst galaxies in the IRX-UV diagram, while there is little or no correlation between the dust-sensitive Hα/Hβ ratio and this distance. This is strong observational evidence that the star formation history is relevant to the second parameter affecting the IRX-UV relation. We show that these results can be understood in the framework of the simple model of Charlot & Fall for the transfer of starlight through the interstellar medium in galaxies. We confirm that, for starburst galaxies, the tight IRX-UV relation can be understood most simply as a sequence in overall dust content. In addition, we find that the broadening of the relation for quiescent star-forming galaxies can be understood most simply as a sequence in the ratio of present to past-averaged star formation rate. We use a library of Monte Carlo realizations of galaxies with different star formation histories and dust contents to quantify the accuracy to which the ultraviolet attenuation A FUV of a galaxy can be estimated from either the ratio of far-infrared to ultraviolet luminosity or the ultraviolet spectral slope. We provide simple formulae for estimating A FUV as a function of either of these observational quantities and show that the accuracy of these estimates can be significantly improved if some constraints are available on the ratio of present to past-averaged star formation rate.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/877be5e8824878f9790c20e3ed91c95af5c252b2

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. C. Conroy
2. P. Hopkins
3. R. Dav'e
4. L. Hernquist
5. P. V. van Dokkum
6. R. Somerville
7. A. Dekel
8. M. Franx

Citations in the corpus

• UV-Optical Colors as Probes of Early-Type Galaxy Evolution (2006, background): “We note that Charlot and Fall (2000) suggest < µ >∼ 3, albeit with a large scatter at lower and higher values - however this is mainly for starbursting galaxies which have significantly different star formation histories than the early-type galaxies in our sample (see also Kong et al. 2004).”
• Spitzer Observations of Massive, Red Galaxies at High Redshift (2005, background): “…for a range of UV-luminous starburst galaxies (Meurer et al. 1999), it does not apply to other types of star-forming galaxies, including normal galaxies (Kong et al. 2004; Buat et al. 2005) and ULIRGs (Goldader et al. 2002), apparently due to geometry effects between the UV- and IRemitting regions.”
• The hierarchical formation of the brightest cluster galaxies (2006, background): “…to be equal to 107 yr) are subject to a differential attenuation with mean perpendicular optical depth: τBCλ = τBCV ( λ 5500 Å )−0.7 and τBCV = τ zλ ( 1 μ − 1 ) , where μ is drawn randomly from a Gaussian distribution with centre 0.3 and width 0.2, truncated at 0.1 and 1 (see Kong et al. 2004).”
• 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, background): “However, the IRX–β relationship is sensitive to variations in the intrinsic UV slope from variation in the recent SFH (Kong et al. 2004; Boquien et al. 2012); furthermore, we show in Section 5.2.1 that the dust attenuation curve shows strong galaxy-to-galaxy variation.”
• CIGALE: a python Code Investigating GALaxy Emission (2018, background): “Numerous works have found and tried to explain the extensive variations observed in the IRX-β relation over the years (e.g. Kong et al. 2004; Burgarella et al. 2005; Boquien et al. 2009, 2012; Overzier et al. 2011; Grasha et al. 2013; Ye et al. 2016; Popping et al. 2017; Reddy et al. 2018, and many…”
• THE DUST ATTENUATION LAW IN DISTANT GALAXIES: EVIDENCE FOR VARIATION WITH SPECTRAL TYPE (2013, background): “We do note though, that the utility of the UV slope for estimating dust attenuation has been called into question before (e.g., Kong et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2007; Conroy et al. 2010b; Gonzalez-Perez et al. 2013).”
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies (2008, methodology): “7b), while more quiescent star-forming galaxies tend to exhibit redder ultraviolet spectra (i.e. larger βUV) than starburst galaxies at fixed L totd /LFUV (Meurer et al. 1999; Bell 2002; Kong et al. 2004).”
• Dependence of galaxy quenching on halo mass and distance from its centre (2012, background): “(However, note that the UV slope may also depend on age and not only on dust - see Kong et al. 2004; Salim et al. 2009.”
• Resolved stellar mass maps of galaxies. I: method and implications for global mass estimates (2009, methodology): “To explore the effect of such differences on colours and M/L, we build a Monte Carlo library of SPS models with the following properties, as in Kong et al. (2004) and da Cunha, Charlot & Elbaz (2008).”
• DUST-CORRECTED STAR FORMATION RATES OF GALAXIES. II. COMBINATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET AND INFRARED TRACERS (2011, methodology): “…within ±1σ uncertainty, and the main contributors to the different relations are the star formation history and the dust attenuation curve that includes the effect of the dust/star distribution, as suggested by other authors (e.g., Charlot & Fall 2000; Kong et al. 2004; Burgarella et al. 2005).”
• The Calibration of Mid-Infrared Star Formation Rate Indicators (2007, background): “Cross–calibrations with optical recombination lines and other indicators have also attempted to account for the ∼10 times or more longer stellar timescales probed by the UV relative to tracers of ionizing photons (e.g., Sullivan et al. 2001; Kong et al. 2004; Calzetti et al. 2005).”
• The Star Formation Rate Density and Dust Attenuation Evolution over 12 Gyr with the VVDS Surveys (2011, methodology): “We use theβ expression of Kong et al. (2004) which accounts for the star formation history to reduce the large scatter of this method.”
• The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies (2006, methodology): “According to Kong et al. (2004) the offset between normal galaxies and starbursts is primarily due to a lower ratio of present to past-averaged SFR in normal galaxies.”
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, background): “Subsequent analyses extending to normal star-forming galaxies (e.g., Hirashita et al. 2003; Kong et al. 2004; Burgarella et al. 2005; Buat et al. 2005; Treyer et al. 2010; Hao et al. 2011) typically produce values of η which are somewhat lower (e.g., 0.46 for Hao et al. 2011), which almost…”
• UV CONTINUUM SLOPE AND DUST OBSCURATION FROM z ∼ 6 TO z ∼ 2: THE STAR FORMATION RATE DENSITY AT HIGH REDSHIFT (2009, background): “This is well documented in the literature (e.g., Bell 2002; Kong et al. 2004; Cortese et al. 2006; Panuzzo et al. 2007).”
• The UV-Optical Galaxy Color-Magnitude Diagram. I. Basic Properties (2007, result): “It has been shown that the relationship between the UV attenuation and UV spectral slope for less active, more ‘‘normal’’ star-forming galaxies is smaller than predicted by the starburst results (Bell 2002; Kong et al. 2004; Seibert et al. 2005; Buat et al. 2005).”
• THE ARECIBO LEGACY FAST ALFA SURVEY: THE GALAXY POPULATION DETECTED BY ALFALFA (2012, background): “Because it contrasts the recent SF, as indicated by the UV light, with the total past SF, as indicated by the optical light, the UV-to-optical color is a stronger diagnostic of SFH than colors derived from the optical bands only.”
• GOODS-HERSCHEL MEASUREMENTS OF THE DUST ATTENUATION OF TYPICAL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: OBSERVATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET-SELECTED GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, background): “Galaxies with older and less massive stars contributing significantly to the UV emission can also exhibit a redder spectral slope (Calzetti 1997; Kong et al. 2004; Buat et al. 2005).”