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Calibration of ultraviolet, mid-infrared and radio star formation rate indicators

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Repository URI

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/267886

Repository DOI

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.13812

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Published version (1.06 MB)
Accepted version (901.07 KB)

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Brown, MJI 
Moustakas, J 
Kennicutt, RC 
Bonne, NJ 
Intema, HT 
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Abstract

We present calibrations for star formation rate indicators in the ultraviolet, mid-infrared and radio continuum bands, including one of the first direct calibrations of 150 MHz as a star formation rate indicator. Our calibrations utilize 66 nearby star forming galaxies with Balmer decrement corrected H-alpha luminosities, which span 5 orders of magnitude in star formation rate and have absolute magnitudes of -24<M_r<-12. Most of our photometry and spectrophotometry is measured from the same region of each galaxy, and our spectrophotometry has been validated with SDSS photometry, so our random and systematic errors are small relative to the intrinsic scatter seen in star formation rate indicator calibrations. We find WISE W4 (22.8 micron), Spitzer 24 micron and 1.4 GHz have tight correlations with Balmer decrement corrected H-alpha luminosity, with scatter of only 0.2 dex. Our calibrations are comparable to those from the prior literature for L* galaxies, but for dwarf galaxies our calibrations can give star formation rates that are far greater than those derived from much of the prior literature.

Description

Keywords

dust, extinction, galaxies: evolution, galaxies: general, galaxies: photometry, stars: formation, techniques: spectroscopic

Journal Title

Astrophysical Journal

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0004-637X
1538-4357

Volume Title

847

Publisher

American Astronomical Society

Publisher DOI

https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa8ad2

Rights

http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/N000927/1)
M.J.I.B. acknowledges financial support from The Australian Research Council (FT100100280), the Monash Research Accelerator Program (MRA), the Monash Outside Studies Programme (OSP), and the University of Cambridge. Part of this work was undertaken while M.J.I.B. was on OSP (sabbatical) leave at the University of Cambridge, Swinburne University, and the University of Melbourne. M.B. was supported by the MINEDUC-UA project, code ANT 1655. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III Web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University. The NASA-Sloan Atlas was created by Michael Blanton, with extensive help and testing from Eyal Kazin, Guangtun Zhu, Adrian Price-Whelan, John Moustakas, Demitri Muna, Renbin Yan, and Benjamin Weaver. Funding for the NASA-Sloan Atlas has been provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (08-ADP08-0072) and the NSF (AST-1211644).

Collections

Scholarly Works - Institute of Astronomy