UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Measures of star formation rates from infrared (Herschel) and UV (GALEX) emissions of galaxies in the HerMES fields

Buat, V; Giovannoli, E; Burgarella, D; Altieri, B; Amblard, A; Arumugam, V; Aussel, H; ... Zemcov, M; + view all (2010) Measures of star formation rates from infrared (Herschel) and UV (GALEX) emissions of galaxies in the HerMES fields. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters , 409 (1) L1 - L6. 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00916.x. Green open access

[thumbnail of Symeonidis_Measures of star formation rates.pdf]
Preview
Text
Symeonidis_Measures of star formation rates.pdf - Published Version

Download (766kB) | Preview

Abstract

The reliability of infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) emissions to measure star formation rates (SFRs) in galaxies is investigated for a large sample of galaxies observed with the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) and the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) instruments on Herschel as part of the Herschel Multi-Tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) project. We build flux-limited 250-µm samples of sources at redshift z < 1, crossmatched with the Spitzer/MIPS and GALEX catalogues. About 60 per cent of the Herschel sources are detected in UV. The total IR luminosities, L_IR, of the sources are estimated using a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code that fits to fluxes between 24 and 500 µm. Dust attenuation is discussed on the basis of commonly used diagnostics: the L_IR/L_UV ratio and the slope, β, of the UV continuum. A mean dust attenuation A_UV of ≃3 mag is measured in the samples. L_IR/L_UV is found to correlate with L_IR. Galaxies with L_IR > 10^11 L_sun and 0.5 < z < 1 exhibit a mean dust attenuation A_UV of about 0.7 mag lower than that found for their local counterparts, although with a large dispersion. Our galaxy samples span a large range of β and L_IR/L_UV values which, for the most part, are distributed between the ranges defined by the relations found locally for starburst and normal star-forming galaxies. As a consequence the recipe commonly applied to local starbursts is found to overestimate the dust attenuation correction in our galaxy sample by a factor of ∼2–3. The SFRs deduced from L_IR are found to account for about 90 per cent of the total SFR; this percentage drops to 71 per cent for galaxies with SFR < 1 M_sun yr^[−1] (or L_IR < 10^10 L_sun). For these faint objects, one needs to combine UV and IR emissions to obtain an accurate measure of the SFR.

Type: Article
Title: Measures of star formation rates from infrared (Herschel) and UV (GALEX) emissions of galaxies in the HerMES fields
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00916.x
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00916.x
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: galaxies: evolution, galaxies: stellar content, infrared: galaxies, ultraviolet: galaxies
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/136063
Downloads since deposit
0Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item