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Register a new userDependence of the IRX-$beta$ dust attenuation relation on metallicity and environment
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We use a sample of star-forming field and protocluster galaxies at z=2.0-2.5 with Keck/MOSFIRE K-band spectra, a wealth of rest-frame UV photometry, and Spitzer/MIPS and Herschel/PACS observations, to dissect the relation between the ratio of IR to UV luminosity (IRX) versus UV slope ($beta$) as a function of gas-phase metallicity (12+log(O/H)~8.2-8.7). We find no significant dependence of the IRX-$beta$ trend on environment. However, we find that at a given $beta$, IRX is highly correlated with metallicity, and less correlated with mass, age, and sSFR. We conclude that, of the physical properties tested here, metallicity is the primary physical cause of the IRX-$beta$ scatter, and the IRX correlation with mass is presumably due to the mass dependence on metallicity. Our results indicate that the UV attenuation curve steepens with decreasing metallicity, and spans the full range of slope possibilities from a shallow Calzetti-type curve for galaxies with the highest metallicity in our sample (12+log(O/H)~8.6) to a steep SMC-like curve for those with 12+log(O/H)~8.3. Using a Calzetti (SMC) curve for the low (high) metallicity galaxies can lead to up to a factor of 3 overestimation (underestimation) of the UV attenuation and obscured SFR. We speculate that this change is due to different properties of dust grains present in the ISM of low- and high-metallicity galaxies.
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We utilise a series of high-resolution cosmological zoom simulations of galaxy formation to investigate the relationship between the ultraviolet (UV) slope, beta, and the ratio of the infrared luminosity to UV luminosity (IRX) in the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies. We employ dust radiative transfer calculations in which the SEDs of the stars in galaxies propagate through the dusty interstellar medium. Our main goals are to understand the origin of, and scatter in the IRX-beta relation; to assess the efficacy of simplified stellar population synthesis screen models in capturing the essential physics in the IRX-beta relation; and to understand systematic deviations from the canonical local IRX-beta relations in particular populations of high-redshift galaxies. Our main results follow. Galaxies that have young stellar populations with relatively cospatial UV and IR emitting regions and a Milky Way-like extinction curve fall on or near the standard Meurer relation. This behaviour is well captured by simplified screen models. Scatter in the IRX-beta relation is dominated by three major effects: (i) older stellar populations drive galaxies below the relations defined for local starbursts due to a reddening of their intrinsic UV SEDs; (ii) complex geometries in high-z heavily star forming galaxies drive galaxies toward blue UV slopes owing to optically thin UV sightlines; (iii) shallow extinction curves drive galaxies downward in the IRX-beta plane due to lowered NUV/FUV extinction ratios. We use these features of the UV slopes of galaxies to derive a fitting relation that reasonably collapses the scatter back toward the canonical local relation. Finally, we use these results to develop an understanding for the location of two particularly enigmatic populations of galaxies in the IRX-beta plane: z~2-4 dusty star forming galaxies, and z>5 star forming galaxies.
We study the relationship between the UV continuum slope and infrared excess (IRX$equiv L_{rm IR}/L_{rm FUV}$) predicted by performing dust radiative transfer on a suite of hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies. Our suite includes both isolated disk galaxies and mergers intended to be representative of galaxies at both $z sim 0$ and $z sim 2-3$. Our low-redshift isolated disks and mergers often populate a region around the the locally calibrated citet[][M99]{M99} relation but move well above the relation during merger-induced starbursts. Our high-redshift simulated galaxies are blue and IR-luminous, which makes them lie above the M99 relation. The value of UV continuum slope strongly depends on the dust type used in the radiative transfer calculations: Milky Way-type dust leads to significantly more negative (bluer) slopes compared with Small Magellanic Cloud-type dust. The effect on $beta$ due to variations in the dust composition with galaxy properties or redshift can dominate over other sources of $beta$ variations and is the dominant model uncertainty. The dispersion in $beta$ is anticorrelated with specific star formation rate and tends to be higher for the $z sim 2-3$ simulations. In the actively star-forming $z sim 2-3$ simulated galaxies, dust attenuation dominates the dispersion in $beta$, whereas in the $z sim 0$ simulations, the contributions of SFH variations and dust are similar. For low-SSFR systems at both redshifts, SFH variations dominate the dispersion. Finally, the simulated $z sim 2-3$ isolated disks and mergers both occupy a region in the irxbeta plane consistent with observed $z sim 2-3$ dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs). Thus, contrary to some claims in the literature, the blue colors of high-z DSFGs do not imply that they are short-lived starbursts.
We examine the relation between gas-phase oxygen abundance and stellar mass---the MZ relation---as a function of the large scale galaxy environment parameterized by the local density. The dependence of the MZ relation on the environment is small. The metallicity where the MZ relation saturates and the slope of the MZ relation are both independent of the local density. The impact of the large scale environment is completely parameterized by the anti-correlation between local density and the turnover stellar mass where the MZ relation begins to saturate. Analytical modeling suggests that the anti-correlation between the local density and turnover stellar mass is a consequence of a variation in the gas content of star-forming galaxies. Across $sim1$ order of magnitude in local density, the gas content at a fixed stellar mass varies by $sim5%$. Variation of the specific star formation rate with environment is consistent with this interpretation. At a fixed stellar mass, galaxies in low density environments have lower metallicities because they are slightly more gas-rich than galaxies in high density environments. Modeling the shape of the mass-metallicity relation thus provides an indirect means to probe subtle variations in the gas content of star-forming galaxies.
The relation between infrared excess (IRX) and UV spectral slope ($beta_{rm UV}$) is an empirical probe of dust properties of galaxies. The shape, scatter, and redshift evolution of this relation are not well understood, however, leading to uncertainties in estimating the dust content and star formation rates (SFRs) of galaxies at high redshift. In this study, we explore the nature and properties of the IRX-$beta_{rm UV}$ relation with a sample of $z=2-6$ galaxies ($M_*approx 10^9-10^{12},M_odot$) extracted from high-resolution cosmological simulations (MassiveFIRE) of the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. The galaxies in our sample show an IRX-$beta_{rm UV}$ relation that is in good agreement with the observed relation in nearby galaxies. IRX is tightly coupled to the UV optical depth, and is mainly determined by the dust-to-star geometry instead of total dust mass, while $beta_{rm UV}$ is set both by stellar properties, UV optical depth, and the dust extinction law. Overall, much of the scatter in the IRX-$beta_{rm UV}$ relation of our sample is found to be driven by variations of the intrinsic UV spectral slope. We further assess how the IRX-$beta_{rm UV}$ relation depends on viewing direction, dust-to-metal ratio, birth-cloud structures, and the dust extinction law and we present a simple model that encapsulates most of the found dependencies. Consequently, we argue that the reported `deficit of the infrared/sub-millimetre bright objects at $z>5$ does not necessarily imply a non-standard dust extinction law at those epochs.
We compare the infrared excess (IRX) and Balmer decrement (${rm Halpha/Hbeta }$) as dust attenuation indicators in relation to other galaxy parameters using a sample of $sim$32 000 local star-forming galaxies (SFGs) carefully selected from SDSS, GALEX and WISE. While at fixed ${rm Halpha/Hbeta }$, IRX turns out to be independent on galaxy stellar mass, the Balmer decrement does show a strong mass dependence at fixed IRX. We find the discrepancy, parameterized by the color excess ratio $R_{rm EBV} equiv E(B-V)_{rm IRX}/E(B-V)_{rm Halpha/Hbeta }$, is not dependent on the gas-phase metallicity and axial ratio but on the specific star formation rate (SSFR) and galaxy size ($R_{rm e}$) following $R_{rm EBV}=0.79+0.15log({rm SSFR}/R_{rm e}^{2})$. This finding reveals that the nebular attenuation as probed by the Balmer decrement becomes increasingly larger than the global (stellar) attenuation of SFGs with decreasing SSFR surface density. This can be understood in the context of an enhanced fraction of intermediate-age stellar populations that are less attenuated by dust than the HII region-traced young population, in conjunction with a decreasing dust opacity of the diffuse ISM when spreading over a larger spatial extent. Once the SSFR surface density of an SFG is known, the conversion between attenuation of nebular and stellar emission can be well estimated using our scaling relation.
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