No Arabic abstract
We present a robust calibration of the 1.4GHz radio continuum star formation rate (SFR) using a combination of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey. We identify individually detected 1.4GHz GAMA-FIRST sources and use a late-type, non-AGN, volume-limited sample from GAMA to produce stellar mass-selected samples. The latter are then combined to produce FIRST-stacked images. This extends the robust parametrisation of the 1.4GHz-SFR relation to faint luminosities. For both the individually detected galaxies and our stacked samples, we compare 1.4GHz luminosity to SFRs derived from GAMA to determine a new 1.4GHz luminosity-to-SFR relation with well constrained slope and normalisation. For the first time, we produce the radio SFR-M* relation over 2 decades in stellar mass, and find that our new calibration is robust, and produces a SFR-M* relation which is consistent with all other GAMA SFR methods. Finally, using our new 1.4GHz luminosity-to-SFR calibration we make predictions for the number of star-forming GAMA sources which are likely to be detected in the upcoming ASKAP surveys, EMU and DINGO.
Recently a number of studies have proposed that the dispersion along the star formation rate - stellar mass relation ($sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$-M$_{*}$) is indicative of variations in star-formation history (SFH) driven by feedback processes. They found a U-shaped dispersion and attribute the increased scatter at low and high stellar masses to stellar and active galactic nuclei feed-back respectively. However, measuring $sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$ and the shape of the $sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$-M$_{*}$ relation is problematic and can vary dramatically depending on the sample selected, chosen separation of passive/star-forming systems, and method of deriving star-formation rates ($i.e.$ H$alpha$ emission vs spectral energy distribution fitting). As such, any astrophysical conclusions drawn from measurements of $sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$ must consider these dependencies. Here we use the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey to explore how $sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$ varies with SFR indicator for a variety of selections for disc-like `main sequence star-forming galaxies including colour, star-formation rate, visual morphology, bulge-to-total mass ratio, S{e}rsic index and mixture modelling. We find that irrespective of sample selection and/or SFR indicator, the dispersion along the sSFR-M$_{*}$ relation does follow a U-shaped distribution. This suggests that the shape is physical and not an artefact of sample selection or method. We then compare the $sigma_{mathrm{sSFR}}$-M$_{*}$ relation to state-of-the-art hydrodynamical and semi-analytic models and find good agreement with our observed results. Finally, we find that for group satellites this U-shaped distribution is not observed due to additional high scatter populations at intermediate stellar masses.
We study the star formation rate (SFR), stellar mass ($M_{star}$) and the gas metallicity (Z) for 4,636 galaxy pairs using the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. Our galaxy pairs lie in a redshift range of 0 $<$ $z$ $<$ 0.35, mass range of 7.5 $<$ log( M$_{star}$/ M$_odot$) $<$ 11.5 and $Delta V$ $<$ 1000 km s$^{-1}$. We explore variations in SFR and Z from three point of views: multiplicity, pair separation and dynamics. We define multiplicity as the number of galaxies paired with a single galaxy, and analyzed for the first time variations in SFR and Z for both, single pairs and pairs with higher multiplicity. For the latter, we find SFR enhancements from 0.025-0.15 dex, that would shift the M-SFR relation of single pairs by 27$%$ to higher SFRs. The effect of Z on the other hand, is of only 4$%$. We analyze the most and least massive galaxy of major/minor pairs as a function of the pair separation. We define major pairs those with mass ratios of 0.5 $<$ $M_1$/$M_2$ $<$ 2, while pairs with more discrepant mass ratios are classified as minor pairs. We find SFR enhancements of up to 2 and 4 times with respect to their control sample, for major and minor pairs. For the case of Z, we find decrements of up to 0.08 dex for the closest pairs. When we focus on dynamics, Z enhancements are found for minor pairs with high velocity dispersion $(sigma_p > 250 ; mathrm{km,s ^{-1}})$ and high multiplicity.
We study the interplay between gas phase metallicity (Z), specific star formation rate (SSFR) and neutral hydrogen gas (HI) for galaxies of different stellar masses. Our study uses spectroscopic data from GAMA and SDSS star forming galaxies, as well as HI-detection from the ALFALFA and GASS public catalogues. We present a model based on the Z-SSFR relation that shows that at a given stellar mass, depending on the amount of gas, galaxies will follow opposite behaviours. Low-mass galaxies with a large amount of gas will show high SSFR and low metallicities, while low-mass galaxies with small amounts of gas will show lower SSFR and high metallicities. In contrast, massive galaxies with a large amount of gas will show moderate SSFR and high metallicities, while massive galaxies with small amounts of gas will show low SSFR and low metallicities. Using ALFALFA and GASS counterparts, we find that the amount of gas is related to those drastic differences in Z and SSFR for galaxies of a similar stellar mass.
We present a meta-analysis of star-formation rate (SFR) indicators in the GAMA survey, producing 12 different SFR metrics and determining the SFR-M* relation for each. We compare and contrast published methods to extract the SFR from each indicator, using a well-defined local sample of morphologically-selected spiral galaxies, which excludes sources which potentially have large recent changes to their SFR. The different methods are found to yield SFR-M* relations with inconsistent slopes and normalisations, suggesting differences between calibration methods. The recovered SFR-M* relations also have a large range in scatter which, as SFRs of the targets may be considered constant over the different timescales, suggests differences in the accuracy by which methods correct for attenuation in individual targets. We then recalibrate all SFR indicators to provide new, robust and consistent luminosity-to-SFR calibrations, finding that the most consistent slopes and normalisations of the SFR-M* relations are obtained when recalibrated using the radiation transfer method of Popescu et al. These new calibrations can be used to directly compare SFRs across different observations, epochs and galaxy populations. We then apply our calibrations to the GAMA II equatorial dataset and explore the evolution of star-formation in the local Universe. We determine the evolution of the normalisation to the SFR-M* relation from 0 < z < 0.35 - finding consistent trends with previous estimates at 0.3 < z < 1.2. We then provide the definitive z < 0.35 Cosmic Star Formation History, SFR-M* relation and its evolution over the last 3 billion years.
We measure the projected 2-point correlation function of galaxies in the 180 deg$^2$ equatorial regions of the GAMA II survey, for four different redshift slices between z = 0.0 and z=0.5. To do this we further develop the Cole (2011) method of producing suitable random catalogues for the calculation of correlation functions. We find that more r-band luminous, more massive and redder galaxies are more clustered. We also find that red galaxies have stronger clustering on scales less than ~3 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. We compare to two differe