GOODS-HERSCHEL MEASUREMENTS OF THE DUST ATTENUATION OF TYPICAL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: OBSERVATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET-SELECTED GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2

By Naveen A. Reddy, Mark Dickinson, D. Elbaz, G. Morrison, M. Giavalisco, R. Ivison, C. Papovich, D. Scott, V. Buat, D. Burgarella and 13 more. 2011

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We take advantage of the sensitivity and resolution of the Herschel Space Observatory at 100 and 160 μm to directly image the thermal dust emission and investigate the infrared luminosities (LIR) and dust obscuration of typical star-forming (L*) galaxies at high redshift. Our sample consists of 146 UV-selected galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts 1.5 ⩽ zspec < 2.6 in the GOODS-North field. Supplemented with deep Very Large Array and Spitzer imaging, we construct median stacks at the positions of these galaxies at 24, 100, and 160 μm, and 1.4 GHz. The comparison between these stacked fluxes and a variety of dust templates and calibrations implies that typical star-forming galaxies with UV luminosities LUV ≳ 1010 L☉ at z ∼ 2 are luminous infrared galaxies with a median LIR = (2.2 ± 0.3) × 1011 L☉. Their median ratio of LIR to rest-frame 8 μm luminosity (L8) is LIR/L8 = 8.9 ± 1.3 and is ≈80% larger than that found for most star-forming galaxies at z ≲ 2. This apparent redshift evolution in the LIR/L8 ratio may be tied to the trend of larger infrared luminosity surface density for z ≳ 2 galaxies relative to those at lower redshift. Typical galaxies at 1.5 ⩽ z < 2.6 have a median dust obscuration LIR/LUV = 7.1 ± 1.1, which corresponds to a dust correction factor, required to recover the bolometric star formation rate (SFR) from the unobscured UV SFR, of 5.2 ± 0.6. This result is similar to that inferred from previous investigations of the UV, Hα, 24 μm, radio, and X-ray properties of the same galaxies studied here. Stacking in bins of UV slope (β) implies that L* galaxies with redder spectral slopes are also dustier and that the correlation between β and dustiness is similar to that found for local starburst galaxies. Hence, the rest-frame ≃ 30 and 50 μm fluxes validate on average the use of the local UV attenuation curve to recover the dust attenuation of typical star-forming galaxies at high redshift. In the simplest interpretation, the agreement between the local and high-redshift UV attenuation curves suggests a similarity in the dust production and stellar and dust geometries of starburst galaxies over the last 10 billion years.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

• MUFASA: Galaxy Formation Simulations With Meshless Hydrodynamics (2016, background): “…data from the compilation of observations by Madau & Dickinson (2014), namely Moustakas et al. (2014) at low redshifts, Ilbert et al. (2013), Muzzin et al. (2013), and Reddy et al. (2012) out to z ∼ 3, and Gonzalez et al. (2011), Lee et al. (2012), and Caputi et al. (2011) to higher redshifts.”
• The UV continua and inferred stellar populations of galaxies at z ~7-9 revealed by the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field 2012 campaign (2012, background): “First, certainly at more modest redshifts, β has been shown to be a good tracer of dust extinction in galaxies, as it has been demonstrated to be well correlated with excess far-infrared emission from dust (e.g. Meurer et al. 1999; Reddy et al. 2012; Heinis et al. 2013).”
• THE MOSDEF SURVEY: MEASUREMENTS OF BALMER DECREMENTS AND THE DUST ATTENUATION CURVE AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 1.4–2.6 (2015, methodology): “The stacking of mid- and far-IR data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory has proved beneficial for our understanding of the average dust properties of typical L∗ star-forming galaxies at z ∼ 2 (Reddy et al. 2006; Daddi et al. 2007; Reddy et al. 2012a).”
• Panchromatic spectral energy distributions of Herschel sources (2013, background): “It is worth to note that, since we are fitting the median photometry of several galaxies, possible variations of the eff ctive attenuation law (e.g. Buat et al. 2012; Reddy et al. 2012, 2006; Wild et al. 2011) are diluted.”
• STRONG NEBULAR LINE RATIOS IN THE SPECTRA of z ∼ 2–3 STAR FORMING GALAXIES: FIRST RESULTS FROM KBSS-MOSFIRE (2014, methodology): “…those of purely rest-UV-color selected samples over the same range of redshifts discussed by (e.g.) Steidel et al. (2004); Erb et al. (2006a,c); Reddy et al. (2010, 2012b); specifically, targets were included whose observed rest-UV and UV/optical colors indicate more heavily reddened galaxies…”
• Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, background): “…SMGs would be around ∼10 if a dust attenuation relation with β from Meurer et al. (1999) is assumed, but again, factors of ∼100 are more typical for SMGs. Reddy et al. (2012) recently studied the direct dust luminosity of UV-selected galaxies, comparing the UV spectral slope directly to stacked…”
• THE STAR FORMATION MASS SEQUENCE OUT TO z = 2.5 (2012, background): “…surveys, and midto far-infrared photometry from Spitzer/MIPS at 24µm,Herschel/PACS 70–160µm, and Herschel/SPIRE 250–500µm, much work has been done to calibrate different SFR indicators over broad redshift ranges (e.g., Muzzin et al. 2010; Hwang et al. 2010; Wuyts et al. 2011a,b; Reddy et al. 2012).”
• UV-CONTINUUM SLOPES AT z  ∼  4–7 FROM THE HUDF09+ERS+CANDELS OBSERVATIONS: DISCOVERY OF A WELL-DEFINED UV COLOR–MAGNITUDE RELATIONSHIP FOR z ⩾ 4 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “Given the correlation found between SFR and stellar mass in highredshift galaxies (e.g., Stark et al. 2009; González et al. 2011; McLure et al. 2011; Lee et al. 2012; Reddy et al. 2012b), we would expect the UV luminosity to be broadly correlated with stellar mass.”
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, background): “…this capability is mainly limited to nearby galaxies, but with the expansion of far-infrared to millimeter surveys of high-redshift galaxies, opportunities to apply multiwavelength diagnostics to distant galaxies should expand in the coming decade (e.g., Overzier et al. 2011; Reddy et al. 2012).”
• KECK SPECTROSCOPY OF 3 < z < 7 FAINT LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF NEBULAR EMISSION IN UNDERSTANDING THE SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE AND STELLAR MASS DENSITY (2012, background): “For each realisation of the UV LF, we draw a UV slope, β, by adopting the redshift-dependent β − MUV scaling relationships (Bouwens et al. 2012b).”
• The HDUV Survey: A Revised Assessment of the Relationship between UV Slope and Dust Attenuation for High-redshift Galaxies (2017, methodology): “…curve steeper than that of the SMC. Figure 9 summarizes a few recent measurements of IRX-β for young and low-mass galaxies at z ∼ 2 (Baker et al. 2001; Siana et al. 2009; Reddy et al. 2010, 2012a), low-mass galaxies and LBGs in general at z ∼ 4 − 10 (Bouwens et al. 2016b), and our own measurements.”
• THE CHARACTERISTIC STAR FORMATION HISTORIES OF GALAXIES AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 2–7 (2012, methodology): “The choice of the Calzetti model is motivated by the good agreement between the Calzetti dust corrections and those determined from Spitzer/MIPS 24µm and Herschel/PACS 100 and 160µm inferences of the infrared luminosities (Reddy et al. 2006b, 2010, 2012).”
• THE EVOLVING INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 AS PROBED BY THEIR INFRARED SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS (2012, unknown): “Our templates result in IR8 values that also mildly increase from IR8 ∼ 4.0 at z = 0 to IR8 ∼ 6.0 at z > 2, in agreement with Elbaz et al. (2011; and in preparation) and with Reddy et al. (2012).”
• A POPULATION OF MASSIVE, LUMINOUS GALAXIES HOSTING HEAVILY DUST-OBSCURED GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE USE OF GRBs AS TRACERS OF COSMIC STAR FORMATION (2013, background): “In spite of these uncertainties, UV-based estimates of SFR are a standard part of the extragalactic toolkit and generally have been quite successful at matching SFR calibrators at other wavelengths (e.g., Elbaz et al. 2007; Pannella et al. 2009; Salim et al. 2009; Reddy et al. 2012).”
• The ALPINE-ALMA [CII] survey (2020, background): “It can also be combined with UV colors and luminosity to construct the infrared-excess (IRX, defined as LFIR/LUV ) versus UV color diagnostic, providing insights into the spatial distribution of dust, dust grain properties, and metallicity (Reddy et al. 2012; Faisst et al. 2017).”