No Arabic abstract
For a mass-selected sample of 66544 galaxies with photometric redshifts from the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), we examine the evolution of star formation activity as a function of stellar mass in galaxies. We estimate the cosmic star formation rates (SFR) over the range 0.2 < z < 1.2, using the rest-frame 2800 A flux (corrected for extinction). We find the mean SFR to be a strong function of the galactic stellar mass at any given redshift, with massive systems (log (M/M(Sun)) > 10.5) contributing less (by a factor of ~ 5) to the total star formation rate density (SFRD). Combining data from the COSMOS and Gemini Deep Deep Survey (GDDS), we extend the SFRD-z relation as a function of stellar mass to z~2. For massive galaxies, we find a steep increase in the SFRD-z relation to z~2; for the less massive systems, the SFRD which also increases from z=0 to 1, levels off at z~1. This implies that the massive systems have had their major star formation activity at earlier epochs (z > 2) than the lower mass galaxies. We study changes in the SFRDs as a function of both redshift and stellar mass for galaxies of different spectral types. We find that the slope of the SFRD-z relation for different spectral type of galaxies is a strong function of their stellar mass. For low and intermediate mass systems, the main contribution to the cosmic SFRD comes from the star-forming galaxies while, for more massive systems, the evolved galaxies are the most dominant population.
(Abridged) We assemble a sample of 3258 low-redshift galaxies from the SDSS DR6 with complementary photometric observations by GALEX, 2MASS and IRAS at far-ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. We use a recent, simple but physically motivated model to interpret the observed spectral energy distributions of the galaxies in this sample in terms of statistical constraints on physical parameters describing the star formation history and dust content. The focus on a subsample of 1658 galaxies with highest S/N observations enables us to investigate most clearly several strong correlations between various derived physical properties of galaxies. We find that the typical dust mass of a star-forming correlates remarkably well with the star formation rate (SFR). We also find that the dust-to-stellar mass ratio, the ratio of dust mass to star formation rate and the fraction of dust luminosity contributed by the diffuse interstellar medium all correlate strongly with specific SFR. A comparison with recent models of chemical and dust evolution of galaxies suggests that these correlations could arise, at least in part, from an evolutionary sequence. As galaxies form stars, their ISM becomes enriched in dust, while the drop in gas supply makes the specific SFR decrease. Interestingly, as a result, a young, actively star-forming galaxy with low dust-to-gas ratio may still be highly dusty because it contains large amounts of interstellar gas. This may be important for the interpretation of the infrared emission from young, gas-rich star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Our study provides a useful local reference for future statistical studies of the star formation and dust properties of galaxies at high redshifts.
This paper systematically investigates comoving Mpc scale intergalactic medium (IGM) environment around galaxies traced by the Ly$alpha$ forest. Using our cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate the IGM-galaxy connection at $z=2$ by two methods: (I) cross-correlation analysis between galaxies and the fluctuation of Ly$alpha$ forest transmission ($delta_text{F}$); and (II) comparing the overdensity of neutral hydrogen (HI) and galaxies. Our simulations reproduce observed cross-correlation functions (CCF) between Ly$alpha$ forest and Lyman-break galaxies. We further investigate the variation of the CCF using subsamples divided by dark matter halo mass ($M_text{DH}$), galaxy stellar mass ($M_star$), and star-formation rate (SFR), and find that the CCF signal becomes stronger with increasing $M_text{DH}$, $M_star$, and SFR. The CCFs between galaxies and gas-density fluctuation are also found to have similar trends. Therefore, the variation of the $delta_text{F}$-CCF depending on $M_text{DH}$, $M_star$, and SFR is due to varying gas density around galaxies. We find that the correlation between galaxies and the IGM HI distribution strongly depends on $M_text{DH}$ as expected from the linear theory. Our results support the $Lambda$CDM paradigm, finding a spatial correlation between galaxies and IGM HI, with more massive galaxies being clustered in higher-density regions.
We investigate the relationship between environment and the galaxy main sequence (the relationship between stellar mass and star formation rate) and also the relationship between environment and radio luminosity (P$_{rm 1.4GHz}$) to shed new light on the effects of the environments on galaxies. We use the VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz catalogue that consists of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and quiescent galaxies (AGN) in three different environments (field, filament, cluster) and for three different galaxy types (satellite, central, isolated). We perform for the first time a comparative analysis of the distribution of SFGs with respect to the main sequence (MS) consensus region from the literature, taking into account galaxy environment and using radio observations at 0.1 $leq$ z $leq$ 1.2. Our results corroborate that SFR is declining with cosmic time which is consistent with the literature. We find that the slope of the MS for different $z$ and M$_{*}$ bins is shallower than the MS consensus with a gradual evolution towards higher redshift bins, irrespective of environments. We see no SFR trends on both environments and galaxy type given the large errors. In addition, we note that the environment does not seem to be the cause of the flattening of MS at high stellar masses for our sample.
Analyzing 24 mu m MIPS/Spitzer data and the [O II]3727 line of a sample of galaxies at 0.4 < z < 0.8 from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS), we investigate the ongoing star formation rate (SFR) and the specific star formation rate (SSFR) as a function of stellar mass in galaxy clusters and groups, and compare with field studies. As for the field, we find a decline in SFR with time, indicating that star formation (SF) was more active in the past, and a decline in SSFR as galaxy stellar mass increases, showing that the current SF contributes more to the fractional growth of low-mass galaxies than high-mass galaxies. However, we find a lower median SFR (by a factor of ~1.5) in cluster star-forming galaxies than in the field. The difference is highly significant when all Spitzer and emission-line galaxies are considered, regardless of color. It remains significant at z>0.6 after removing red emission-line (REL) galaxies, to avoid possible AGN contamination. While there is overlap between the cluster and field SFR-Mass relations, we find a population of cluster galaxies (10-25%) with reduced SFR for their mass. These are likely to be in transition from star-forming to passive. Comparing separately clusters and groups at z>0.6, only cluster trends are significantly different from the field, and the average cluster SFR at a given mass is ~2 times lower than the field. We conclude that the average SFR in star-forming galaxies varies with galaxy environment at a fixed galaxy mass.
We have measured the relationships between HI mass, stellar mass and star formation rate using the HI Parkes All Sky-Survey Catalogue (HICAT) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Of the 3,513 HICAT sources, we find 3.4 micron counterparts for 2,896 sources (80%) and provide new WISE matched aperture photometry for these galaxies. For our principal sample of spiral galaxies with W1 $le$ 10 mag and z $le$ 0.01, we identify HI detections for 93% of the sample. We measure lower HI-stellar mass relationships that HI selected samples that do not include spiral galaxies with little HI gas. Our observations of the spiral sample show that HI mass increases with stellar mass with a power-law index 0.35; however, this value is dependent on T-type, which affects both the median and the dispersion of HI mass. We also observe an upper limit on the HI gas fraction, which is consistent with a halo spin parameter model. We measure the star formation efficiency of spiral galaxies to be constant 10$^{-9.57}$ yr$^{-1}$ $pm$ 0.4 dex for 2.5 orders of magnitude in stellar mass, despite the higher stellar mass spiral showing evidence of quenched star formation.