No Arabic abstract
A summary is presented for 130 galaxies observed with the Herschel PACS instrument to measure fluxes for the [CII] 158 um emission line. Sources cover a wide range of active galactic nucleus to starburst classifications, as derived from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) strength measured with the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph. Redshifts from [CII] and line to continuum strengths (equivalent width of [CII]) are given for the full sample, which includes 18 new [CII] flux measures. Calibration of L([CII)]) as a star formation rate (SFR) indicator is determined by comparing [CII] luminosities with mid-infrared [NeII] and [NeIII] emission line luminosities; this gives the same result as determining SFR using bolometric luminosities of reradiating dust from starbursts: log SFR = log L([CII)]) - 7.0, for SFR in solar masses per year and L([CII]) in solar luminosities. We conclude that L([CII]) can be used to measure SFR in any source to a precision of ~ 50%, even if total source luminosities are dominated by an AGN component. The line to continuum ratio at 158 um, EW([CII]), is not significantly greater for starbursts (median EW([CII]) = 1.0 um) compared to composites and AGN (median EW([CII]) = 0.7 um), showing that the far infrared continuum at 158 um scales with [CII] regardless of classification. This indicates that the continuum at 158 um also arises primarily from the starburst component within any source, giving log SFR = log vLv(158 um) - 42.8 for SFR in solar masses per year and vLv(158 um) in erg per sec.
The [CII] 157.74 $mu$m transition is the dominant coolant of the neutral interstellar gas, and has great potential as a star formation rate (SFR) tracer. Using the Herschel KINGFISH sample of 46 nearby galaxies, we investigate the relation of [CII] surface brightness and luminosity with SFR. We conclude that [CII] can be used for measurements of SFR on both global and kiloparsec scales in normal star-forming galaxies in the absence of strong active galactic nuclei (AGN). The uncertainty of the $Sigma_{rm [CII]}-Sigma_{rm SFR}$ calibration is $pm$0.21 dex. The main source of scatter in the correlation is associated with regions that exhibit warm IR colors, and we provide an adjustment based on IR color that reduces the scatter. We show that the color-adjusted $Sigma_{rm[CII]}-Sigma_{rm SFR}$ correlation is valid over almost 5 orders of magnitude in $Sigma_{rm SFR}$, holding for both normal star-forming galaxies and non-AGN luminous infrared galaxies. Using [CII] luminosity instead of surface brightness to estimate SFR suffers from worse systematics, frequently underpredicting SFR in luminous infrared galaxies even after IR color adjustment (although this depends on the SFR measure employed). We suspect that surface brightness relations are better behaved than the luminosity relations because the former are more closely related to the local far-UV field strength, most likely the main parameter controlling the efficiency of the conversion of far-UV radiation into gas heating. A simple model based on Starburst99 population-synthesis code to connect SFR to [CII] finds that heating efficiencies are $1%-3%$ in normal galaxies.
The star formation rate (SFR) is one of the most fundamental parameters of galaxies, but nearly all of the standard SFR diagnostics are difficult to measure in active galaxies because of contamination from the active galactic nucleus (AGN). Being less sensitive to dust extinction, the mid-infrared fine-structure lines of [NeII] 12.81 micron and [NeIII] 15.56 micron effectively trace the SFR in star-forming galaxies. These lines also have the potential to serve as a reliable SFR indicator in active galaxies, provided that their contribution from the AGN narrow-line region can be removed. We use a new set of photoionization calculations with realistic AGN spectral energy distributions and input assumptions to constrain the magnitude of [NeII] and [NeIII] produced by the narrow-line region for a given strength of [NeV] 14.32 micron. We demonstrate that AGNs emit a relatively restricted range of [NeII]/[NeV] and [NeIII]/[NeV] ratios. Hence, once [NeV] is measured, the AGN contribution to the low-ionization Ne lines can be estimated, and the SFR can be determined from the strength of [NeII] and [NeIII]. We find that AGN host galaxies have similar properties as compact extragalactic HII regions, which indicates that the star formation in AGN hosts is spatially concentrated. This suggests a close relationship between black hole accretion and nuclear star formation. We update the calibration of [NeII] and [NeIII] strength as a SFR indicator, explicitly considering the effects of metallicity, finding very good relations between Ne fractional abundances and the [NeIII]/[NeII] ratio for different metallicities, ionization parameters, and starburst ages. Comparison of neon-based SFRs with independent SFRs for active and star-forming galaxies shows excellent consistency with small scatter ($sim0.18$ dex).
The brightest observed emission line in many star-forming galaxies is the [CII] 158 micron line, making it detectable up to z~7. In order to better understand and quantify the [CII] emission as a tracer of star-formation, the theoretical ratio between the [NII] 205 micron emission and the [CII] 158 micron emission has been employed to empirically determine the fraction of [CII] emission that originates from the ionized and neutral phases of the ISM. Sub-kiloparsec measurements of the [CII] 158 micron and [NII] 205 micron line in nearby galaxies have recently become available as part of the Key Insights in Nearby Galaxies: a Far Infrared Survey with Herschel (KINGFISH) and Beyond the Peak (BtP) programs. With the information from these two far-infrared lines along with the multi-wavelength suite of KINGFISH data, a calibration of the [CII] emission line as a star formation rate indicator and a better understanding of the [CII] deficit are pursued. [CII] emission is also compared to PAH emission in these regions to compare photoelectric heating from PAH molecules to cooling by [CII] in the neutral and ionized phases of the ISM. We find that the [CII] emission originating in the neutral phase of the ISM does not exhibit a deficit with respect to the infrared luminosity and is therefore preferred over the [CII] emission originating in the ionized phase of the ISM as a star formation rate indicator for the normal star-forming galaxies included in this sample.
We present a novel method to simultaneously characterise the star formation law and the interstellar medium properties of galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) through the combination of [CII] 158$mu$m (and its known relation with star formation rate) and CIII]$lambda$1909{AA} emission line data. The method, based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm, allows to determine the target galaxy average density, $n$, gas metallicity, $Z$, and burstiness parameter, $kappa_s$, quantifying deviations from the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. As an application, we consider COS-3018 (z=6.854), the only EoR Lyman Break Galaxy so far detected in both [CII] and CIII]. We show that COS-3018 is a moderate starburst ($kappa_s approx 3$), with $Zapprox 0.4, Z_{odot}$, and $n approx 500, {rm cm^{-3}}$. Our method will be optimally applied to joint ALMA and JWST targets.
The Halpha and mid-infrared mean disk surface brightnesses are compared in a sample of nearby spirals observed by ISOCAM. This shows that, in spiral disks, dust emission at 7 and 15 microns provides a reasonable star formation tracer. The fact that the 15 to 7 micron flux ratio is nearly constant in various global exciting conditions indicates a common origin, namely the aromatic infrared band carriers, and implies that at these wavelengths, dust emission from the disks of normal galaxies is dominated by photodissociation regions and not by HII regions themselves. We use this newly-found correlation between the mid-infrared and the Halpha line to investigate the nature of the link between the far-infrared (60 and 100 microns) and Halpha. Although the separation of the central regions from the disk is impossible to achieve in the far-infrared, we show that a circumnuclear contribution to the dust emission, having no equivalent counterpart in Halpha, is most likely responsible for the well-known non-linearity between far-infrared and Halpha fluxes in spiral galaxies. We derive a calibration of 7 and 15 micron fluxes in terms of star formation rates from a primary calibration of Halpha in the literature, and also outline the applicability limits of the proposed conversion, which should not be blindly extrapolated to objects whose nature is unknown.