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Register a new userVLA-COSMOS 3GHz Large Project: The infrared-radio correlation of star-forming galaxies and AGN to $zlesssim6$
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We examine the behaviour of the infrared-radio correlation (IRRC) over the range $0<z<6$ using new, highly sensitive 3GHz observations with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and infrared data from the Herschel Space Observatory in the 2deg$^{2}$ COSMOS field. We distinguish between objects where emission is believed to arise solely from star-formation, and those where an active galactic nucleus (AGN) is thought to be present. We account for non-detections in the radio or in the infrared using a doubly-censored survival analysis. We find that the IRRC of star-forming galaxies, quantified by the infrared-to-1.4GHz radio luminosity ratio ($q_{rm TIR}$), decreases with increasing redshift: $q_{rm TIR}(z)=(2.88pm0.03)(1+z)^{-0.19pm0.01}$. Moderate-to-high radiative luminosity AGN do not follow the same $q_{rm TIR}$$(z)$ trend, having a lower normalisation and steeper decrease with redshift. We cannot rule out the possibility that unidentified AGN contributions only to the radio regime may be steepening the observed $q_{rm TIR}(z)$ trend of the star-forming population. An increasing fractional contribution to the observed 3GHz flux by free-free emission of star-forming galaxies may also affect the derived evolution. However, we find that the standard (M82-based) assumption of the typical radio spectral energy distribution (SED) for star-forming galaxies is inconsistent with our results. This suggests a more complex shape of the typical radio SED for star-forming galaxies, and that imperfect $K$ corrections in the radio may govern the derived redshift trend of $q_{rm TIR}$. Lastly, we present a redshift-dependent relation between rest-frame 1.4GHz radio luminosity and star formation rate taking the derived redshift trend into account.
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We construct the average radio spectral energy distribution (SED) of highly star-forming galaxies (HSFGs) up to z~4. Infrared and radio luminosities are bound by a tight correlation that is defined by the so-called q parameter. This infrared-radio correlation provides the basis for the use of radio luminosity as a star-formation tracer. Recent stacking and survival analysis studies find q to be decreasing with increasing redshift. It was pointed out that a possible cause of the redshift trend could be the computation of rest-frame radio luminosity via a single power-law assumption of the star-forming galaxies (SFGs) SED.To test this, we constrained the shape of the radio SED of a sample of HSFGs. To achieve a broad rest-frame frequency range, we combined previously published VLA observations of the COSMOS field at 1.4 GHz and 3 GHz with unpublished GMRT observations at 325 MHz and 610 MHz by employing survival analysis to account for non-detections in the GMRT maps. We selected a sample of HSFGs in a broad redshift range (0.3<z<4,SFR>100M0/yr) and constructed the average radio SED. By fitting a broken power-law, we find that the spectral index changes from $alpha_1=0.42pm0.06$ below a rest-frame frequency of 4.3 GHz to $alpha_2=0.94pm0.06$ above 4.3 GHz. Our results are in line with previous low-redshift studies of HSFGs (SFR>10M0/yr) that show the SED of HSFGs to differ from the SED found for normal SFGs (SFR<10M0/yr). The difference is mainly in a steeper spectrum around 10 GHz, which could indicate a smaller fraction of thermal free-free emission. Finally, we also discuss the impact of applying this broken power-law SED in place of a simple power-law in K-corrections of HSFGs and a typical radio SED for normal SFGs drawn from the literature. We find that the shape of the radio SED is unlikely to be the root cause of the q-z trend in SFGs.
Using infrared data from the Herschel Space Observatory and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) 3 GHz observations in the COSMOS field, we investigate the redshift evolution of the infrared-radio correlation (IRRC) for star-forming galaxies (SFGs) we classify as either spheroid- or disc-dominated based on their morphology. The sample predominantly consists of disc galaxies with stellar mass ${gtrsim}10^{10},M_{odot}$, and residing on the star-forming main sequence (MS). After the removal of AGN using standard approaches, we observe a significant difference between the redshift-evolution of the median IR/radio ratio $overline{q}_{mathrm{TIR}}$ of (i) a sample of ellipticals, plus discs with a substantial bulge component (`spheroid-dominated SFGs) and, (ii) virtually pure discs and irregular systems (`disc-dominated SFGs). The spheroid-dominated population follows a declining $overline{q}_{mathrm{TIR}}$ vs. $z$ trend similar to that measured in recent evolutionary studies of the IRRC. However, for disc-dominated galaxies, where radio and IR emission should be linked to star formation in the most straightforward way, we measure very little change in $overline{q}_{mathrm{TIR}}$. This suggests that low-redshift calibrations of radio emission as an SFR-tracer may remain valid out to at least $z,{simeq},1,{-},1.5$ for pure star-forming systems. We find that the different redshift-evolution of $q_{rm TIR}$ for the spheroid- and disc-dominated sample is mainly due to an increasing radio excess for spheroid-dominated galaxies at $z,{gtrsim},$0.8, hinting at some residual AGN activity in these systems. This finding demonstrates that in the absence of AGN the IRRC is independent of redshift, and that radio observations can therefore be used to estimate SFRs at all redshifts for genuinely star-forming galaxies.
We study a sample of 1,604 moderate-to-high radiative luminosity active galactic nuclei (HLAGN) selected at 3 GHz within the VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz Large Project. These were classified by combining multiple AGN diagnostics: X-ray data, mid-infrared data and broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting. We decompose the total radio 1.4 GHz luminosity ($mathrm{L_{1.4 GHz,TOT}}$) into the emission originating from star formation and AGN activity by measuring the excess in $mathrm{L_{1.4 GHz,TOT}}$ relative to the infrared-radio correlation of star-forming galaxies. To quantify the excess, for each source we calculate the AGN fraction ($mathrm{f_{AGN}}$), the fractional contribution of AGN activity to $mathrm{L_{1.4 GHz,TOT}}$. The majority of the HLAGN, $(68.0pm1.5)%$, are dominated by star-forming processes ($f_{AGN}leq0.5$), while $(32.0pm1.5)%$ are dominated by AGN-related radio emission ($0.5<f_{AGN}leq1$). We use the AGN-related 1.4 GHz emission to derive the 1.4 GHz AGN luminosity functions of HLAGN. By assuming pure density and pure luminosity evolution models we constrain their cosmic evolution out to $zsim6$, finding $mathrm{Phi^* (z) propto (1+z)^{(2.64pm0.10)+(-0.61pm0.04) z}}$ and $mathrm{L^* (z) propto (1+z)^{(3.97pm0.15) + (-0.92pm0.06)z}}$. These evolutionary laws show that the number and luminosity density of HLAGN increased from higher redshifts ($zsim6$) up to a maximum in the redshift range $ 1<z<2.5$, followed by a decline towards local values. By scaling the 1.4 GHz AGN luminosity to kinetic luminosity using the standard conversion, we estimate the kinetic luminosity density as a function of redshift. We compare our result to the semi-analytic models of radio mode feedback finding that this feedback could have played an important role in the context of AGN-host coevolution in HLAGN which show evidence of AGN-related radio emission ($f_{AGN}>0$).
We study the radio spectral properties of 2,094 star-forming galaxies (SFGs) by combining our early science data from the MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) survey with VLA, GMRT radio data, and rich ancillary data in the COSMOS field. These SFGs are selected at VLA 3GHz, and their flux densities from MeerKAT 1.3GHz and GMRT 325MHz imaging data are extracted using the super-deblending technique. The median radio spectral index is $alpha_{rm 1.3GHz}^{rm 3GHz}=-0.80pm0.01$ without significant variation across the rest-frame frequencies ~1.3-10GHz, indicating radio spectra dominated by synchrotron radiation. On average, the radio spectrum at observer-frame 1.3-3GHz slightly steepens with increasing stellar mass with a linear fitted slope of $beta=-0.08pm0.01$, which could be explained by age-related synchrotron losses. Due to the sensitivity of GMRT 325MHz data, we apply a further flux density cut at 3GHz ($S_{rm 3GHz}ge50,mu$Jy) and obtain a sample of 166 SFGs with measured flux densities at 325MHz, 1.3GHz, and 3GHz. On average, the radio spectrum of SFGs flattens at low frequency with the median spectral indices of $alpha^{rm 1.3GHz}_{rm 325MHz}=-0.59^{+0.02}_{-0.03}$ and $alpha^{rm 3.0GHz}_{rm 1.3GHz}=-0.74^{+0.01}_{-0.02}$. At low frequency, our stacking analyses show that the radio spectrum also slightly steepens with increasing stellar mass. By comparing the far-infrared-radio correlations of SFGs based on different radio spectral indices, we find that adopting $alpha_{rm 1.3GHz}^{rm 3GHz}$ for $k$-corrections will significantly underestimate the infrared-to-radio luminosity ratio ($q_{rm IR}$) for >17% of the SFGs with measured flux density at the three radio frequencies in our sample, because their radio spectra are significantly flatter at low frequency (0.33-1.3GHz).
Based on a sample of over 1,800 radio AGN at redshifts out to z~5, which have typical stellar masses within ~3x(10^{10}-10^{11}) Msol, and 3 GHz radio data in the COSMOS field, we derived the 1.4 GHz radio luminosity functions for radio AGN (L_1.4GHz ~ 10^{22}-10^{27} W/Hz) out to z~5. We constrained the evolution of this population via continuous models of pure density and pure luminosity evolutions, and we found best-fit parametrizations of Phi*~(1+z)^{(2.00+/-0.18)-(0.60+/-0.14)z}, and L*~(1+z)^{(2.88+/-0.82)-(0.84+/-0.34)z}, respectively, with a turnover in number and luminosity densities of the population at z~1.5. We converted 1.4 GHz luminosity to kinetic luminosity taking uncertainties of the scaling relation used into account. We thereby derived the cosmic evolution of the kinetic luminosity density provided by the AGN and compared this luminosity density to the radio-mode AGN feedback assumed in the Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution (SAGE) model, i.e., to the redshift evolution of the central supermassive black hole accretion luminosity taken in the model as the source of heating that offsets the energy losses of the cooling, hot halo gas, and thereby limits further stellar mass growth of massive galaxies. We find that the kinetic luminosity exerted by our radio AGN may be high enough to balance the radiative cooling of the hot gas at each cosmic epoch since z~5. However, although our findings support the idea of radio-mode AGN feedback as a cosmologically relevant process in massive galaxy formation, many simplifications in both the observational and semi-analytic approaches still remain and need to be resolved before robust conclusions can be reached.
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