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Near-identical star formation rate densities from Hα and FUV at redshift zero


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Authors

Audcent-Ross, Fiona M 
Meurer, Gerhardt R 
Wong, OI 
Zheng, Z 
Hanish, D 

Abstract

For the first time both Hα and far-ultraviolet (FUV) observations from an HI-selected sample are used to determine the dust-corrected star formation rate density (SFRD: ρ˙) in the local Universe. Applying the two star formation rate indicators on 294 local galaxies we determine log(ρ˙$ {H\alpha}) = -1.68~^{+0.13}{-0.05}$ [M${\odot} $ yr$^{-1} $ Mpc−3] and log(ρ˙FUV) $ = -1.71~^{+0.12}{-0.13}$ [M$_\odot $ yr$^{-1} $ Mpc−3]. These values are derived from scaling Hα and FUV observations to the HI mass function. Galaxies were selected to uniformly sample the full HI mass (MHI) range of the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey (MHI∼107 to ∼1010.7 M). The approach leads to relatively larger sampling of dwarf galaxies compared to optically-selected surveys. The low HI mass, low luminosity and low surface brightness galaxy populations have, on average, lower Hα/FUV flux ratios than the remaining galaxy populations, consistent with the earlier results of Meurer. The near-identical Hα- and FUV-derived SFRD values arise with the low Hα/FUV flux ratios of some galaxies being offset by enhanced Hα from the brightest and high mass galaxy populations. Our findings confirm the necessity to fully sample the HI mass range for a complete census of local star formation to include lower stellar mass galaxies which dominate the local Universe.

Description

Keywords

galaxies: luminosity function, galaxies: star formation, surveys, ultraviolet: galaxies

Journal Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1365-2966
1365-2966

Volume Title

480

Publisher

Oxford University Press
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/N000927/1)
Partial funding for the SINGG and SUNGG surveys came from NASA grants NAG5-13083 (LTSA program), GALEX GI04- 0105-0009 (NASA GALEX Guest Investigator grant) and NNX09AF85G (GALEX archival grant) to G.R. Meurer. FAR acknowledges partial funding from the Department of Physics, University of Western Australia. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.