Modeling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies. I. The Role of ISM Pressure and the Molecular Cloud Dissipation Timescale

By M. Dopita, B. Groves, J. Fischera, R. Sutherland, R. Tuffs, C. Popescu, Lisa J. Kewley, M. Reuland, C. Leitherer. 2004

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In this paper, we combine the stellar spectral synthesis code STARBURST99, the nebular modeling code MAPPINGS IIIq, a one-dimensional dynamical evolution model of H II regions around massive clusters of young stars, and a simplified model of synchrotron emissivity to produce purely theoretical self-consistent synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for (solar metallicity) starbursts lasting ~108 yr. These SEDs extend from the Lyman limit to beyond 21 cm. We find that two ISM parameters control the form of the SED: the pressure in the diffuse phase of the ISM (or, equivalently, its density), and the molecular cloud dissipation timescale. In particular, the shape of the far-infrared (dust re-emission) bump is strongly dependent on the mean pressure in the star-forming or starburst galaxy. This can explain the range of far-infrared (FIR) colors seen in starburst galaxies. In the case of objects of composite excitation, such diagrams potentially provide a means of estimating the fraction of the FIR emission that is contributed by an active nucleus. We present detailed SED fits to Arp 220 and NGC 6240, and we give the predicted colors for starburst galaxies derived from our models for the IRAS and the Spitzer Space Telescope MIPS and IRAC instruments. Our models reproduce the spread in observed colors of starburst galaxies. From both the SED fits and the color : color diagrams, we infer the presence of a population of compact and ultracompact H II regions around single OB stars or small OB clusters. Finally, we present absolute calibrations to convert observed fluxes into star formation rates in the UV (GALEX), at optical wavelengths (Hα), and in the IR (IRAS or Spitzer). We show that 25 μm fluxes are particularly valuable as star formation indicators, since they largely eliminate one of the parameters controlling the IR SED.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b0f02ec96827ec10e6a3e911ba59936091258404

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Citations in the corpus

Modelling the spectral energy distribution of galaxies - V. The dust and PAH emission SEDs of disk galaxies (2010, methodology): “In reality we expect star formation complexes in more pressurised regions (such as the inner disk) to be more compact and therefore have warmer FIR colours than their counterparts in low pressure regions (such as the outer disk), as modelled by Dopita et al. (2005).”
Dust in starburst nuclei and ULIRGs - SED models for observers (2006, result): “Dopita et al. (2005) underestimate in their model the 10–30µm region (by a factor∼4 at 15µm) but they argue that they could match the data if they added an AGN component, a procedure which is sometimes applied to galaxies with hidden broad line regions (Efstathiou & Siebenmorgen 2005).”
Deep Spitzer 24 μm COSMOS Imaging. I. The Evolution of Luminous Dusty Galaxies—Confronting the Models (2009, background): “…(8µm <∼λ<∼ 1000µm) plays a major role in shaping the panchromatic appearance of star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei (e.g., Silva et al. 1998; Gordon et al. 2000; Nenkova et al. 2002; Dopita et al. 2005; Marshall et al. 2007; Siebenmorgen & Krügel 2007; da Cunha et al. 2008).”
Chemical Abundances of DEEP2 Star-forming Galaxies at z~1.0-1.5 (2005, background): “14 electron densities in starburst nuclei result from the higher ambient interstellar pressures present in such environments (Dopita et al. 2005).”
A physical model for z∼ 2 dust-obscured galaxies (2009, methodology): “The PAH template is a linear combination of Lorentzian profiles, and the fraction of PAHs emitting the template is chosen to fit Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) observations of local galaxies (Dopita et al. 2005; Groves et al. 2008; Jonsson et al. 2010).”
Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, methodology): “Although the Dopita et al. (2005) models are not often widely used amongst the high-z dusty galaxy community, their application could be appropriate, especially for solar-metallicity systems.”
NEW STRONG-LINE ABUNDANCE DIAGNOSTICS FOR H ii REGIONS: EFFECTS OF κ-DISTRIBUTED ELECTRON ENERGIES AND NEW ATOMIC DATA (2013, methodology): “The solar abundance set is taken from Grevesse et al. (2010) and the depletion factors for each element are updated from Dopita et al. (2005) using the data from Kimura et al. (2003).”
Fitting the integrated spectral energy distributions of galaxies (2010, methodology): “Groves et al. (2008) (building on previous works; Dopita et al. 2005, 2006a, 2006b), take this work a step further by self-consistently calculating the emission of a starforming region, including the radiative transfer through the surrounding gas and dust simultaneously.”
The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models (2008, background): “…are based on the older Anders & Grevesse (1989) abundance set; a solar abundance set based on the Asplund et al. (2005) abundances as listed in Dopita et al. (2005), which is referred to here as the ‘‘dopita2005’’ abundances; and an LMC and an SMC abundance set as given by Russell & Dopita…”
Panchromatic spectral energy distributions of Herschel sources (2013, methodology): “…from the ultraviolet (UV) to FIR, making use of radiative transfer and ray tracing techniques (e.g. Siebenmorgen & Krügel 2007; Piovan et al. 2006; Dopita et al. 2005; Efstathiou et al. 2000; Silva et al. 1998), provides extensive information on the physical properties of star-forming regions,…”
Analysis of galaxy spectral energy distributions from far-UV to far-IR with CIGALE: studying a SINGS test sample (2009, background): “Models that also include stellar emission and dust attenuation at shorter wavelengths were published by, e.g., Silva et al. (1998), Dopita et al. (2005), and da Cunha et al. (2008).”
High-resolution panchromatic spectral models of galaxies including photoionization and dust (2009, methodology): “…cross-sections in Li & Draine (2001), and the fraction of this energy not lost to photoelectric effects is then emitted as a fixed template made up of Lorentzian profiles designed to fit Spitzer IRS observations of PAH emission (Dopita et al. 2005; Groves et al. 2008), assuming energy conservation.”
GALAXY-WIDE SHOCKS IN LATE-MERGER STAGE LUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES (2011, methodology): “The star formation rate can be approximated using LHα and LIR (Kennicutt 1998; Dopita et al. 2005, 2003; Calzetti et al. 2007; Kennicutt et al. 2009).”
Modeling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies. IV. The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED (2007, methodology): “The technique of modelling the SEDs of individual compact and ultra-compact H II regions was fully described in Dopita et al. (2005b).”
The Horizon-AGN simulation: evolution of galaxy properties over cosmic time (2016, methodology): “A sub-resolution model for photo-dissociation regions (MAPPINGSIII; Dopita et al. 2005, Groves et al. 2008) is used to account for obscuration of young stars by their birth clouds.”
Strongly star forming galaxies in the local Universe with nebular He iiλ4686 emission (2012, methodology): “Using the predictions of the Dopita et al. (2005) and Allen et al. (2008) shock models for the He II λ4686/Hβ ratio versus [N II] λ6584/Hα, we found that we can only obtain a ratio comparable to the observed one for objects at high metallicity.”