No Arabic abstract
We present an analysis of the star formation properties of field galaxies within the local volume out to a recession velocity limit of 3000 km/s. A parent sample of 863 star-forming galaxies is used to calculate a B-band luminosity function. This is then populated with star formation information from a subsample of 327 galaxies, for which we have H alpha imaging, firstly by calibrating a relationship between galaxy B-band luminosity and star formation rate, and secondly by a Monte Carlo simulation of a representative sample of galaxies, in which star formation information is randomly sampled from the observed subset. The total star formation rate density of the local Universe is found to be between 0.016 and 0.023 MSun/yr/cubic Mpc, with the uncertainties being dominated by the internal extinction correction used in converting measured H alpha fluxes to star formation rates. If our internally derived B-band luminosity function is replaced by one from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey blue sequence, the star formation rate densities are approx. 60% of the above values. We also calculate the contribution to the total star formation rate density from galaxies of different luminosities and Hubble T-types. The largest contribution comes from bright galaxies with B absolute mag of approx. -20 mag, and the total contribution from galaxies fainter than -15.5 mag is less than 10%. Almost 60% of the star formation rate density comes from galaxies of types Sb, Sbc or Sc; 9% from galaxies earlier than Sb and 33% from galaxies later than Sc. Finally, 75 - 80% of the total star formation in the local Universe is shown to be occurring in disk regions, defined as being >1 kpc from the centres of galaxies.
H$alpha$ blobs are off-galaxy emission-line regions with weak or no optical counterparts. They are mostly visible in H$alpha$ line, appearing as concentrated blobs. Such unusual objects have been rarely observed and studied, and their physical origin is still unclear. We have identified 13 H$alpha$ blobs in the public data of MaNGA survey, by visually inspecting both the SDSS optical images and the spatially resolved maps of H$alpha$ line for $sim 4600$ galaxy systems. Among the 13 H$alpha$ blobs, 2 were reported in previously MaNGA-based studies and 11 are newly discovered. This sample, though still small in size, is by far the largest sample with both deep imaging and integral field spectroscopy. Therefore, for the first time we are able to perform statistical studies to investigate the physical origin of H$alpha$ blobs. We examine the physical properties of these H$alpha$ blobs and their associated galaxies, including their morphology, environments, gas-phase metallicity, kinematics of ionized gas, and ionizing sources. We find that the H$alpha$ blobs in our sample can be broadly divided into two groups. One is associated with interacting/merging galaxy systems, of which the ionization is dominated by shocks or diffuse ionized gas. It is likely that these H$alpha$ blobs used to be part of their nearby galaxies, but were stripped away at some point due to tidal interactions. The other group is found in gas-rich systems, appearing as low-metallicity star-forming regions that are visually detached from the main galaxy.
We investigate the H-alpha and infrared star formation rate (SFR) diagnostics for galaxies in the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey (NFGS). For the 81 galaxies in our sample, we derive H-alpha fluxes (included here) from integrated spectra. There is a strong correlation between the ratio of far-infrared to optical luminosities L(FIR)/L(H-alpha) and the extinction E(B-V) measured with the Balmer decrement. Before reddening correction, the SFR(IR) and SFR(H-alpha) are related to each other by a power-law. Correction of the SFR(H-alpha) for extinction using the Balmer decrement and a classical reddening curve both reduces the scatter in the SFR(IR)-SFR(H-alpha) correlation and results in a much closer agreement (within ~10%) between the two SFR indicators. This SFR relationship spans 4 orders of magnitude and holds for all Hubble types with IRAS detections in the NFGS. A constant ratio between the SFR(IR) and SFR(H-alpha) for all Hubble types, including early types (S0-Sab), suggests that the IR emission in all of these objects results from a young stellar population.
We measure star formation rates of ~50,000 optically-selected galaxies in the local universe (z~0.1), spanning a range from gas-rich dwarfs to massive ellipticals. We obtain dust-corrected SFRs by fitting the GALEX (UV) and SDSS (optical) photometry to a library of population synthesis models that include dust attenuation. For star-forming galaxies, our UV-based SFRs compare remarkably well with those derived from SDSS H alpha. Deviations from perfect agreement between these two methods are due to differences in the dust attenuation estimates. In contrast to H alpha, UV provides reliable SFRs for galaxies with weak or no H alpha emission, and where H alpha is contaminated with an emission from an AGN. We use full-SED SFRs to calibrate a simple prescription that uses GALEX UV magnitudes to produce good SFRs for normal star-forming galaxies. The specific SFR is considered as a function of stellar mass for (1) star-forming galaxies with no AGN, (2) those hosting an AGN, and for (3) galaxies without H alpha emission. We find that the three have distinct star formation histories, with AGN lying intermediate between the star-forming and the quiescent galaxies. Normal star forming galaxies (without an AGN) lie on a relatively narrow linear sequence. Remarkably, galaxies hosting a strong AGN appear to represent the massive continuation of this sequence. Weak AGN, while also massive, have lower SFR, sometimes extending to the realm of quiescent galaxies. We propose an evolutionary sequence for massive galaxies that smoothly connects normal star-forming galaxies to quiescent (red sequence) galaxies via strong and weak AGN. We confirm that some galaxies with no H alpha emission show signs of SF in the UV. We derive a UV-based cosmic SFR density at z=0.1 with smaller total error than previous measurements (abridged).
We constrain the mass distribution in nearby, star-forming galaxies with the Star Formation Reference Survey (SFRS), a galaxy sample constructed to be representative of all known combinations of star formation rate (SFR), dust temperature, and specific star formation rate (sSFR) that exist in the Local Universe. An innovative two-dimensional bulge/disk decomposition of the 2MASS/$K_{s}$-band images of the SFRS galaxies yields global luminosity and stellar mass functions, along with separate mass functions for their bulges and disks. These accurate mass functions cover the full range from dwarf galaxies to large spirals, and are representative of star-forming galaxies selected based on their infra-red luminosity, unbiased by AGN content and environment. We measure an integrated luminosity density $j$ = 1.72 $pm$ 0.93 $times$ 10$^{9}$ L$_{odot}$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ and a total stellar mass density $rho_{M}$ = 4.61 $pm$ 2.40 $times$ 10$^{8}$ M$_{odot}$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-3}$. While the stellar mass of the emph{average} star-forming galaxy is equally distributed between its sub-components, disks globally dominate the mass density budget by a ratio 4:1 with respect to bulges. In particular, our functions suggest that recent star formation happened primarily in massive systems, where they have yielded a disk stellar mass density larger than that of bulges by more than 1 dex. Our results constitute a reference benchmark for models addressing the assembly of stellar mass on the bulges and disks of local ($z = 0$) star-forming galaxies.
The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS) is an objective-prism survey for extragalactic emission-line objects. It combines many of the features of previous slitless spectroscopic surveys with the advantages of modern CCD detectors, and is the first purely digital objective-prism survey for emission-line galaxies. Here we present the second list of emission-line galaxy candidates selected from our red spectral data, which cover the wavelength range 6400 to 7200 A. In most cases, the detected emission line is H-alpha. The current survey list covers a 1.6-degree-wide strip located at Dec(1950) = 43d 30 and spans the RA range 11h 55m to 16h 15m. The survey strip runs through the center of the Bootes Void, and has enough depth to adequately sample the far side of the void. An area of 65.8 sq. deg. is covered. A total of 1029 candidate emission-line objects have been selected for inclusion in the survey list (15.6 per sq. deg.). We tabulate accurate coordinates and photometry for each source, as well as estimates of the redshift and emission-line flux and equivalent width based on measurements of the digital objective-prism spectra. The properties of the KISS emission-line galaxies are examined using the available observational data. Although the current survey covers only a modest fraction of the total volume of the Bootes Void, we catalog at least twelve objects that appear to be located within the void. Only one of these objects has been recognized previously as a void galaxy.