No Arabic abstract
Several works in the past decade have used the ratio between total (rest 8-1000$mu$m) infrared and radio (rest 1.4~GHz) luminosity in star-forming galaxies (q$_{IR}$), often referred to as the infrared-radio correlation (IRRC), to calibrate radio emission as a star formation rate (SFR) indicator. Previous studies constrained the evolution of q$_{IR}$ with redshift, finding a mild but significant decline, that is yet to be understood. For the first time, we calibrate q$_{IR}$ as a function of textit{both} stellar mass (M$_{star}$) and redshift, starting from an M$_{star}$-selected sample of $>$400,000 star-forming galaxies in the COSMOS field, identified via (NUV-r)/(r-J) colours, at redshifts 0.1$<$z$<$4.5. Within each (M$_{star}$,z) bin, we stack the deepest available infrared/sub-mm and radio images. We fit the stacked IR spectral energy distributions with typical star-forming galaxy and IR-AGN templates, and carefully remove radio AGN candidates via a recursive approach. We find that the IRRC evolves primarily with M$_{star}$, with more massive galaxies displaying systematically lower q$_{IR}$. A secondary, weaker dependence on redshift is also observed. The best-fit analytical expression is the following: q$_{IR}$(M$_{star}$,z)=(2.646$pm$0.024)$times$(1+z)$^{(-0.023pm0.008)}$-(0.148$pm$0.013)$times$($log~M_{star}$/M$_{odot}$-10). The lower IR/radio ratios seen in more massive galaxies are well described by their higher observed SFR surface densities. Our findings highlight that using radio-synchrotron emission as a proxy for SFR requires novel M$_{star}$-dependent recipes, that will enable us to convert detections from future ultra deep radio surveys into accurate SFR measurements down to low-SFR, low-M$_{star}$ galaxies.
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 exploit the continuity equation approach and the `main sequence star-formation timescales to show that the observed high abundance of galaxies with stellar masses > a few 10^10 M_sun at redshift z>4 implies the existence of a galaxy population featuring large star formation rates (SFRs) > 10^2 M_sun/yr in heavily dust-obscured conditions. These galaxies constitute the high-redshift counterparts of the dusty star-forming population already surveyed for z<3 in the far-IR band by the Herschel space observatory. We work out specific predictions for the evolution of the corresponding stellar mass and SFR functions out to z~10, elucidating that the number density at z<8 for SFRs >30 M_sun/yr cannot be estimated relying on the UV luminosity function alone, even when standard corrections for dust extinction based on the UV slope are applied. We compute the number counts and redshift distributions (including galaxy-scale gravitational lensing) of this galaxy population, and show that current data from AzTEC-LABOCA, SCUBA-2 and ALMA-SPT surveys are already digging into it. We substantiate how an observational strategy based on a color preselection in the far-IR or (sub-)mm band with Herschel and SCUBA-2, supplemented by photometric data via on-source observations with ALMA, can allow to reconstruct the bright end of the SFR functions out to z~8. In parallel, such a challenging task can be managed by exploiting current UV surveys in combination with (sub-)mm observations by ALMA and NIKA2 and/or radio observations by SKA and its precursors.
For the first time, we present the size evolution of a mass-complete (log(M*/Msol)>10) sample of star-forming galaxies over redshifts z=1-7, selected from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE). Observed H-band sizes are measured from the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/F160W imaging. Distributions of individual galaxy masses and sizes illustrate that a clear mass-size relation exists up to z~7. At z~7, we find that the average galaxy size from the mass-size relation is more compact at a fixed mass of log(M*/Msol)=10.1, with r_1/2,maj=1.02+/-0.29 kpc, than at lower redshifts. This is consistent with our results from stacking the same CANDELS HST/F160W imaging, when we correct for galaxy position angle alignment. We find that the size evolution of star-forming galaxies is well fit by a power law of the form r_e = 7.07(1 + z)^-0.89 kpc, which is consistent with previous works for normal star-formers at 1<z<4. In order to compare our slope with those derived Lyman break galaxy studies, we correct for different IMFs and methodology and find a slope of -0.97+/-0.02, which is shallower than that reported for the evolution of Lyman break galaxies at z>4 (r_epropto(1 +z)^-1.2+/-0.06). Therefore, we conclude the Lyman break galaxies likely represent a subset of highly star-forming galaxies that exhibit rapid size growth at z>4.
We present near-infrared and optical spectroscopic observations of a sample of 450$mu$m and 850$mu$m-selected dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) identified in a 400 arcmin$^2$ area in the COSMOS field. Thirty-one sources of the 102 targets were spectroscopically confirmed at $0.2<z<4$, identified primarily in the near-infrared with Keck MOSFIRE and some in the optical with Keck LRIS and DEIMOS. The low rate of confirmation is attributable both to high rest-frame optical obscuration in our targets and limited sensitivity to certain redshift ranges. The high-quality photometric redshifts available in the COSMOS field allow us to test the robustness of photometric redshifts for DSFGs. We find a subset (11/31$approx35$%) of DSFGs with inaccurate ($Delta z/(1+z)>0.2$) or non-existent photometric redshifts; these have very distinct spectral energy distributions from the remaining DSFGs, suggesting a decoupling of highly obscured and unobscured components. We present a composite rest-frame 4300--7300AA spectrum for DSFGs, and find evidence of 200$pm$30 km s$^{-1}$ gas outflows. Nebular line emission for a sub-sample of our detections indicate that hard ionizing radiation fields are ubiquitous in high-z DSFGs, even more so than typical mass or UV-selected high-z galaxies. We also confirm the extreme level of dust obscuration in DSFGs, measuring very high Balmer decrements, and very high ratios of IR to UV and IR to H$alpha$ luminosities. This work demonstrates the need to broaden the use of wide bandwidth technology in the millimeter to the spectroscopic confirmations of large samples of high-z DSFGs, as the difficulty in confirming such sources at optical/near-infrared wavelengths is exceedingly challenging given their obscuration.
We use deep panchromatic datasets in the GOODS-N field, from GALEX to the deepest Herschel far-infrared and VLA radio continuum imaging, to explore, using mass-complete samples, the evolution of the star formation activity and dust attenuation of star-forming galaxies to z~4. Our main results can be summarized as follows: i) the slope of the SFR-M correlation is consistent with being constant, and equal to ~0.8 at least up to z~1.5, while its normalization keeps increasing with redshift; ii) for the first time here we are able to explore the FIR-radio correlation for a mass-selected sample of star-forming galaxies: the correlation does not evolve up to z~4; iii) we confirm that galaxy stellar mass is a robust proxy for UV dust attenuation in star-forming galaxies, with more massive galaxies being more dust attenuated, strikingly we find that this attenuation relation evolves very weakly with redshift, the amount of dust attenuation increasing by less than 0.3 magnitudes over the redshift range [0.5-4] for a fixed stellar mass, as opposed to a tenfold increase of star formation rate; iv) the correlation between dust attenuation and the UV spectral slope evolves in redshift, with the median UV spectral slope of star-forming galaxies becoming bluer with redshift. By z~3, typical UV slopes are inconsistent, given the measured dust attenuation, with the predictions of commonly used empirical laws. Finally, building on existing results, we show that gas reddening is marginally larger (by a factor of around 1.3) than stellar reddening at all redshifts probed, and also that the amount of dust attenuation at a fixed ISM metallicity increases with redshift. We speculate that our results support evolving ISM conditions of typical star-forming galaxies such that at z~1.5 Main Sequence galaxies have ISM conditions getting closer to those of local starbursts.