Dust-corrected star formation rates of galaxies. I. Combinations of H{alpha} and infrared tracers. (2009)
Keywords :
dust, extinction - galaxies evolution - galaxies: ISM - H II regions - stars: formation
Abstract:We combine H{alpha} emission-line and infrared (IR) continuum measurements of two samples of nearby galaxies to derive dust attenuation-corrected star formation rates (SFRs). We use a simple energy balance based method that has been applied previously to HII regions in the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey, and extend the methodology to integrated measurements of galaxies. We find that our composite H{alpha}+IR based SFRs are in excellent agreement with attenuation-corrected SFRs derived from integrated spectrophotometry, over the full range of SFRs (0.01-80M_{sun}_/yr) and attenuations (0-2.5mag) studied. The calibrations differ significantly from those obtained for HII regions, with the difference attributable to a more
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Our samples are drawn from two surveys of nearby galaxies, the SINGS
survey (Kennicutt et al. 2003PASP..115..928K) and a survey of
integrated spectrophotometry of 417 galaxies by Moustakas & Kennicutt
(2006, Cat. J/ApJS/164/81). Integrated H{alpha} fluxes and
H{alpha}/H{beta} flux ratios for the MK06 sample were taken directly
from the integrated spectra. The galaxies were observed with the B&C
Spectrograph on the Steward Observatory Bok 2.3m telescope.
Drift-scanned spectra were also obtained for the SINGS sample, using
the same instrument and setup as MK06 for northern galaxies, and the
R-C spectrograph on the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO)
1.5m telescope for a handful of galaxies that could not be reached
from Kitt Peak.
- VII/161 : Nearby Galaxies (Schmidt+ 1993)
- II/156 : IRAS Faint Source Catalog, |b| > 10, Version 2.0 (Moshir+ 1989)
- VII/109 : IRAS Observations of Large Optical Galaxies (Rice+, 1988)
- VII/75 : IR photometry and 21cm data for nearby galaxies (Aaronson+, 1982)
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- J/ApJ/701/1965 : Radial dust properties of SINGS galaxies (Munoz-Mateos+, 2009)
- J/ApJ/703/1569 : Radial distribution in SINGS galaxies. I. (Munoz-Mateos+,
- J/ApJS/178/247 : H{alpha} and [NII] survey in local 11 Mpc (Kennicutt+, 2008)
- J/ApJ/669/959 : Warm molecular hydrogen in SINGS galaxies (Roussel+, 2007)
- J/ApJS/164/81 : Spectrophotometry of nearby galaxies (Moustakas+, 2006)
- J/AJ/126/1607 : IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (Sanders+, 2003)
- J/ApJS/146/353 : Circumnuclear dust in galaxies (Martini+, 2003)
- J/ApJ/513/168 : HST observations of carbon in spiral galaxies (Garnett+, 1999)
- J/ApJ/510/104 : Ionizing Stars of Extragalactic H II Regions (Bresolin+ 1999)
- J/AJ/116/2805 : H II regions in spiral galaxies (Van Zee+, 1998)
- J/A+AS/91/285 : HII galaxies spectrophotometric catalogue (Terlevich+, 1991)
- J/ApJS/65/485 : 1.49GHz Atlas of Spiral Galaxies (Condon, 1987)
