No Arabic abstract
We discuss the implications of assuming different star formation histories (SFH) in the relation between star formation rate (SFR) and mass derived by the spectral energy distribution fitting (SED). Our analysis focuses on a sample of HII galaxies, dwarf starburst galaxies spectroscopically selected through their strong narrow emission lines in SDSS DR13 at z<0.4, cross-matched with photometric catalogs from GALEX, SDSS, UKIDSS and WISE. We modeled and fitted the SEDs with the code CIGALE adopting different descriptions of SFH. By adding information from different independent studies we find that HII galaxies are best described by episodic SFHs including an old (10 Gyr), an intermediate age (100-1000 Myr) and a recent population with ages < 10 Myr. HII galaxies agree with the SFR-M relation from local star-forming galaxies, and only lie above such relation when the current SFR is adopted as opposed to the average over the entire SFH. The SFR-M demonstrated not to be a good tool to provide additional information about the SFH of HII galaxies, as different SFH present a similar behavior with a spread of <0.1 dex.
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 derive the SFH of MS galaxies showing how the SFH peak of a galaxy depends on its seed mass at e.g. z=5. Following the MS, galaxies undergo a drastic slow down of their stellar mass growth after reaching the peak of their SFH. According to abundance matching, these masses correspond to hot and massive DM halos which state could results in less efficient gas inflows on the galaxies and thus could be at the origin of the limited stellar mass growth. As a result, galaxies on the MS can enter the passive region of the UVJ diagram while still forming stars. The ability of the classical analytical SFHs to retrieve the SFR of galaxies from SED fitting is studied. Due to mathematical limitations, the exp-declining and delayed SFH struggle to model high SFR which starts to be problematic at z>2. The exp-rising and log-normal SFHs exhibit the opposite behavior with the ability to reach very high SFR, and thus model starburst galaxies, but not low values such as those expected at low redshift for massive galaxies. We show that these four analytical forms recover the SFR of MS galaxies with an error dependent on the model and the redshift. They are, however, sensitive enough to probe small variations of SFR within the MS but all the four fail to recover the SFR of rapidly quenched galaxies. However, these SFHs lead to an artificial gradient of age, parallel to the MS which is not exhibited by a simulated sample. This gradient is also produced on real data, using a sample of GOODS-South galaxies at 1.5<z<1.2. We propose a SFH composed of a delayed form to model the bulk of stellar population plus a flexibility in the recent SFH. This SFH provides very good estimates of the SFR of MS, starbursts, and rapidly quenched galaxies at all z. Furthermore, used on the GOODS-South sample, the age gradient disappears, showing its dependency on the SFH assumption made to perform the SED fitting.
In this paper we investigate the impact of different star formation histories (SFHs) on the relation between stellar mass M$_{*}$ and star formation rate (SFR) using a sample of galaxies with reliable spectroscopic redshift zspec>2 drawn from the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey (VUDS). We produce an extensive database of dusty model galaxies, calculated starting from the new library of single stellar population (SSPs) models presented in Cassara et al. 2013 and weighted by a set of 28 different SFHs based on the Schmidt function, and characterized by different ratios of the gas infall time scale $tau_{infall}$ to the star formation efficiency $ u$. The treatment of dust extinction and re-emission has been carried out by means of the radiative transfer calculation. The spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique is performed by using GOSSIP+, a tool able to combine both photometric and spectroscopic information to extract the best value of the physical quantities of interest, and to consider the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) attenuation as a free parameter. We find that the main contribution to the scatter observed in the $SFR-M_{*}$ plane is the possibility of choosing between different families of SFHs in the SED fitting procedure, while the redshift range plays a minor role. The majority of the galaxies, at all cosmic times, are best-fit by models with SFHs characterized by a high $tau_{rm infall}/ u$ ratio. We discuss the reliability of the presence of a small percentage of dusty and highly star forming galaxies, in the light of their detection in the FIR.
We explore star-formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies based on the evolution of the star-formation rate stellar mass relation (SFR-M*). Using data from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE) in combination with far-IR imaging from the Spitzer and Herschel observatories we measure the SFR-M* relation at 0.5 < z < 4. Similar to recent works we find that the average infrared SEDs of galaxies are roughly consistent with a single infrared template across a broad range of redshifts and stellar masses, with evidence for only weak deviations. We find that the SFR-M* relation is not consistent with a single power-law of the form SFR ~ M*^a at any redshift; it has a power-law slope of a~1 at low masses, and becomes shallower above a turnover mass (M_0) that ranges from 10^9.5 - 10^10.8 Msol, with evidence that M_0 increases with redshift. We compare our measurements to results from state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, and find general agreement in the slope of the SFR-M* relation albeit with systematic offsets. We use the evolving SFR-M* sequence to generate SFHs, finding that typical SFRs of individual galaxies rise at early times and decline after reaching a peak. This peak occurs earlier for more massive galaxies. We integrate these SFHs to generate mass-growth histories and compare to the implied mass-growth from the evolution of the stellar mass function. We find that these two estimates are in broad qualitative agreement, but that there is room for improvement at a more detailed level. At early times the SFHs suggest mass-growth rates that are as much as 10x higher than inferred from the stellar mass function. However, at later times the SFHs under-predict the inferred evolution, as is expected in the case of additional growth due to mergers.
Context. There are typically two different approaches to infer the mass formation history (MFH) of a given galaxy from its luminosity in different bands. Non-parametric methods are known for their flexibility and accuracy, while parametric models are more computationally efficient. Aims. In this work we propose an alternative that combines the advantages of both techniques, based on a polynomial expansion around the present time. Methods. In our approach, the MFH is decomposed through an orthonormal basis of N polynomia in lookback time. To test the proposed framework, synthetic observations are generated from models based on common analytical approximations (exponential, delayed-tau and Gaussian star formation histories). A normalized distance is used to measure the quality of the fit, and the input MFH are compared with the polynomial reconstructions both at the present time as well as through cosmic evolution. Results. The observed luminosities are reproduced with an accuracy of around 10 per cent for a constant star formation rate (N=1) and better for higher-order polynomia. Our method provides good results on the reconstruction of the total stellar mass, star formation rate and even its first derivative for smooth star formation histories, but it has difficulties in reproducing variations on short timescales and/or star formation histories peaking at the earliest times of the Universe. Conclusions. The polynomial expansion appears to be a promising alternative to other analytical functions used in parametric methods, combining both speed and flexibility.