On the Normalization of the Cosmic Star Formation History

By Andrew M. Hopkins, J. Beacom. 2006

1,467 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Strong constraints on the cosmic star formation history (SFH) have recently been established using ultraviolet and far-infrared measurements, refining the results of numerous measurements over the past decade. The data show a compellingly consistent picture of the SFH out to redshift z ≈ 6, with especially tight constraints for z ≲ 1. We fit these data with simple analytical forms and derive conservative uncertainties. Since the z ≲ 1 SFH data are quite precise, we investigate the sequence of assumptions and corrections that together affect the SFH normalization to test their accuracy, both in this redshift range and beyond. As lower limits on this normalization, we consider the evolution in stellar and metal mass densities, and supernova rate density, finding it unlikely that the SFH normalization is much lower than indicated by our direct fit. As a corresponding upper limit on the SFH normalization, we consider the Super-Kamiokande limit on the electron antineutrino (e) flux from past core-collapse supernovae, which applies primarily to z ≲ 1. We find consistency with the SFH only if the neutrino temperatures from supernova events are relatively modest. Constraints on the assumed initial mass function (IMF) also become apparent. The traditional Salpeter IMF, assumed for convenience by many authors, is known to be a poor representation at low stellar masses (≲1 M☉), and we show that recently favored IMFs are also constrained. In particular, somewhat shallow, or top-heavy, IMFs may be preferred, although they cannot be too top-heavy. To resolve the outstanding issues, improved data are called for on the supernova rate density evolution, the ranges of stellar masses leading to core-collapse and type Ia supernovae, and the antineutrino and neutrino backgrounds from core-collapse supernovae.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ce34c4968ea6c09f693db24375d9d9d2d374b3c2

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Citations in the corpus

The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “…in the introduction, the ratio of the rate of build-up of galaxies through star formation to the rate of the build-up of black holes via accretion has been broadly independent of cosmic time over at least the last ∼ 10Gyrs with a value of ∼1500 (Shankar et al. 2009, 2013, Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
ALMA REDSHIFTS OF MILLIMETER-SELECTED GALAXIES FROM THE SPT SURVEY: THE REDSHIFT DISTRIBUTION OF DUSTY STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, background): “Optical surveys now allow estimates of the history of star formation (the ‘Madau-Lilly’ plot; Madau et al. 1996; Lilly et al. 1996; Hopkins & Beacom 2006) out to z ∼ 8 (e.g., Bouwens et al. 2010, 2011), but have uncertain dust extinction corrections.”
A SPITZER-SELECTED GALAXY CLUSTER AT z = 1.62 (2010, background): “Most studies of cluster galaxies imply their stellar populations formed atzf & 1.5 (e.g., van Dokkum & van der Marel 2007), concurrent with the peak epoch in the star–formation rate density from UV and IR measurements (see e.g., Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
A lower-limit flux for the extragalactic background light (2010, background): “1; It is lower by a factor of 2 to 3 than the data, compiled by Hopkins & Beacom (2006).”
The physics driving the cosmic star formation history (2009, methodology): “Also observe that the scatter is clearly too large compared with the error bars, despite the fact that Hopkins & Beacom (2006) applied a uniform dust correction and that the same IMF was assumed for all observations.”
How sensitive are predicted galaxy luminosities to the choice of stellar population synthesis model (2013, background): “The triangles present the compilation from Hopkins & Beacom (2006) for UV, H α , FIR and radio tracers ( ∼ 1.4 GHz).”
A HIGHLY CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE STAR-FORMING “MAIN SEQUENCE” FROM z ∼ 0–6 (2014, methodology): “Coupled with observed evolution in the cosmic star formation history (cSFH; Lilly et al. 1996; Madau et al. 1996; Hopkins & Beacom 2006), “downsizing” has instead been taken to be an evolutionary scenario where more massive objects evolve more quickly.”
A census of metals and baryons in stars in the local universe (2007, background): “This redshift is compatible with the redshift range 1 z 2 at which the cosmic SFR density starts to decline (e.g. Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
Semi-analytic modelling of the extragalactic background light and consequences for extragalactic gamma-ray spectra: Modelling of the EBL and gamma-ray spectra (2012, methodology): “The authors favour their model (‘C’) with a Baldry & Glazebrook (2003) IMF and star formation history from Hopkins & Beacom (2006) with Cole et al. (2001) parametrization.”
EVOLUTION OF MASSIVE PROTOSTARS WITH HIGH ACCRETION RATES (2008, methodology): “The cosmic star formation rate is mostly estimated with the light observed from massive stars (e.g., Madau et al. 1996; Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
METALLICITY-DEPENDENT QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION AT HIGH REDSHIFT IN SMALL GALAXIES (2011, background): “First, the cosmic star formation rate (SFR) density is observed to be rising in time from z > 8 till z ∼ 3, and it remains high till z ∼ 1 (e.g. Hopkins & Beacom 2006; krumholz@ucolick.edu dekel@phys.huji.ac.il Kistler et al. 2009; Bouwens et al. 2010; Horiuchi & Beacom 2010), while ΛCDM predicts a…”
Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients, and gas fractions at z ~ 3.4 (2013, background): “The evolution of the gas fraction in massive galaxies strongly resembles the evolution of the cosmic density of star formation rate (Hopkins & Beacom 2006) and provide further support to the scenario where the cosmic evolution of the SFR in galaxies is actually driven by the evolution of their…”
THE IMPACT OF COLD GAS ACCRETION ABOVE A MASS FLOOR ON GALAXY SCALING RELATIONS (2009, background): “The average density of SF, ρ̇⋆, is observed to be rising from z ∼ 6 to z ∼ 2, reaching a plateau at about z ∼ 2, and then dropping by an order of magnitude between z ∼ 1 and z = 0 (e.g. Lilly et al. 1996; Madau et al. 1996; Hopkins & Beacom 2006, and references therein).”
Massive black hole binaries from runaway collisions: the impact of metallicity (2016, background): “…simulations, tGW is the maximum coalescence time of such systems, M∗ is the total simulated stellar mass (given by the number of simulated YDSCs multiplied by their mass), tlife is the lifetime of an YDSC, and ρSFR is the cosmic star formation rate density at low redshift (Hopkins & Beacom 2006).”
Revealing the High-Redshift Star Formation Rate with Gamma-Ray Bursts (2008, methodology): “…on earlier estimates of the high-z SFR using GRB data (e.g., Berger et al. 2005; Natarajan et al. 2005; Jakobsson et al. 2006; Le & Dermer 2007; Chary et al. 2007) in several ways, not least of which by using significantly updated SFR (Hopkins & Beacom 2006) and/or GRB (Butler et al. 2007) data.”
Quantifying cosmic variance (2010, background): “…perturbations in measurements within our Universe due to sampling size. function/densities (Norberg et al. 2002a; Hill et al. 2010), the HI mass function (Zwaan et al. 2005), the cosmic starformation history (Hopkins & Beacom 2006), and the stellar mass density (Wilkins, Trentham & Hopkins 2008).”