No Arabic abstract
We constrain the mass distribution in nearby, star-forming galaxies with the Star Formation Reference Survey (SFRS), a galaxy sample constructed to be representative of all known combinations of star formation rate (SFR), dust temperature, and specific star formation rate (sSFR) that exist in the Local Universe. An innovative two-dimensional bulge/disk decomposition of the 2MASS/$K_{s}$-band images of the SFRS galaxies yields global luminosity and stellar mass functions, along with separate mass functions for their bulges and disks. These accurate mass functions cover the full range from dwarf galaxies to large spirals, and are representative of star-forming galaxies selected based on their infra-red luminosity, unbiased by AGN content and environment. We measure an integrated luminosity density $j$ = 1.72 $pm$ 0.93 $times$ 10$^{9}$ L$_{odot}$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ and a total stellar mass density $rho_{M}$ = 4.61 $pm$ 2.40 $times$ 10$^{8}$ M$_{odot}$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-3}$. While the stellar mass of the emph{average} star-forming galaxy is equally distributed between its sub-components, disks globally dominate the mass density budget by a ratio 4:1 with respect to bulges. In particular, our functions suggest that recent star formation happened primarily in massive systems, where they have yielded a disk stellar mass density larger than that of bulges by more than 1 dex. Our results constitute a reference benchmark for models addressing the assembly of stellar mass on the bulges and disks of local ($z = 0$) star-forming galaxies.
We present a study of the hierarchical clustering of the young stellar clusters in six local (3--15 Mpc) star-forming galaxies using Hubble Space Telescope broad band WFC3/UVIS UV and optical images from the Treasury Program LEGUS (Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey). We have identified 3685 likely clusters and associations, each visually classified by their morphology, and we use the angular two-point correlation function to study the clustering of these stellar systems. We find that the spatial distribution of the young clusters and associations are clustered with respect to each other, forming large, unbound hierarchical star-forming complexes that are in general very young. The strength of the clustering decreases with increasing age of the star clusters and stellar associations, becoming more homogeneously distributed after ~40--60 Myr and on scales larger than a few hundred parsecs. In all galaxies, the associations exhibit a global behavior that is distinct and more strongly correlated from compact clusters. Thus, populations of clusters are more evolved than associations in terms of their spatial distribution, traveling significantly from their birth site within a few tens of Myr whereas associations show evidence of disruption occurring very quickly after their formation. The clustering of the stellar systems resembles that of a turbulent interstellar medium that drives the star formation process, correlating the components in unbound star-forming complexes in a hierarchical manner, dispersing shortly after formation, suggestive of a single, continuous mode of star formation across all galaxies.
To understand cosmic mass assembly in the Universe at early epochs, we primarily rely on measurements of stellar mass and star formation rate of distant galaxies. In this paper, we present stellar masses and star formation rates of six high-redshift ($2.8leq z leq 5.7$) dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) that are strongly gravitationally lensed by foreground galaxies. These sources were first discovered by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) at millimeter wavelengths and all have spectroscopic redshifts and robust lens models derived from ALMA observations. We have conducted follow-up observations, obtaining multi-wavelength imaging data, using {it HST}, {it Spitzer}, {it Herschel} and the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX). We use the high-resolution {it HST}/WFC3 images to disentangle the background source from the foreground lens in {it Spitzer}/IRAC data. The detections and upper limits provide important constraints on the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for these DSFGs, yielding stellar masses, IR luminosities, and star formation rates (SFRs). The SED fits of six SPT sources show that the intrinsic stellar masses span a range more than one order of magnitude with a median value $sim$ 5 $times 10^{10}M_{Sun}$. The intrinsic IR luminosities range from 4$times 10^{12}L_{Sun}$ to 4$times 10^{13}L_{Sun}$. They all have prodigious intrinsic star formation rates of 510 to 4800 $M_{Sun} {rm yr}^{-1}$. Compared to the star-forming main sequence (MS), these six DSFGs have specific SFRs that all lie above the MS, including two galaxies that are a factor of 10 higher than the MS. Our results suggest that we are witnessing the ongoing strong starburst events which may be driven by major mergers.
We present multi-wavelength global star formation rate (SFR) estimates for 326 galaxies from the Star Formation Reference Survey (SFRS) in order to determine the mutual scatter and range of validity of different indicators. The widely used empirical SFR recipes based on 1.4 GHz continuum, 8.0 $mu$m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and a combination of far-infrared (FIR) plus ultraviolet (UV) emission are mutually consistent with scatter of $raise{-0.8ex}stackrel{textstyle <}{sim }$0.3 dex. The scatter is even smaller, $raise{-0.8ex}stackrel{textstyle <}{sim }$0.24 dex, in the intermediate luminosity range 9.3<log(L(60 $mu$m/L$_odot$)<10.7. The data prefer a non-linear relation between 1.4 GHz luminosity and other SFR measures. PAH luminosity underestimates SFR for galaxies with strong UV emission. A bolometric extinction correction to far-ultraviolet luminosity yields SFR within 0.2 dex of the total SFR estimate, but extinction corrections based on UV spectral slope or nuclear Balmer decrement give SFRs that may differ from the total SFR by up to 2 dex. However, for the minority of galaxies with UV luminosity ${>}5times10^9$ L$_{odot}$ or with implied far-UV extinction <1 mag, the UV spectral slope gives extinction corrections with 0.22~dex uncertainty.
The metallicity and its relationship with other galactic properties is a fundamental probe of the evolution of galaxies. In this work, we select about 750,000 star-forming spatial pixels from 1122 blue galaxies in the MaNGA survey to investigate the global stellar mass - local stellar mass surface density - gas-phase metallicity ($M_*$ - $Sigma_*$ - $Z$ ) relation. At a fixed $M_*$, the metallicity increases steeply with increasing $Sigma_*$. Similarly, at a fixed $Sigma_*$, the metallicity increases strongly with increasing $M_*$ at low mass end, while this trend becomes less obvious at high mass end. We find the metallicity to be more strongly correlated to $Sigma_*$ than to $M_*$. Furthermore, we construct a tight (0.07 dex scatter) $M_*$ - $Sigma_*$ - $Z$ relation, which reduces the scatter in the $Sigma_*$ - $Z$ relation by about 30$%$ for galaxies with $7.8 < {rm log}(M_*/M_odot) < 11.0$, while the reduction of scatter is much weaker for high-mass galaxies. This result suggests that, especially for low-mass galaxies, the $M_*$ - $Sigma_*$ - $Z$ relation is largely more fundamental than the $M_*$ - $Z$ and $Sigma_*$ - $Z$ relations, meaning that both $M_*$ and $Sigma_*$ play important roles in shaping the local metallicity. We also find that the local metallicity is probably independent on the local star formation rate surface density at a fixed $M_*$ and $Sigma_*$. Our results are consistent with the scenario that the local metallicities in galaxies are shaped by the combination of the local stars formed in the history and the metal loss caused by galactic winds.
We report on the discovery of 28 $zapprox0.8$ metal-poor galaxies in DEEP2. These galaxies were selected for their detection of the weak [OIII]$lambda$4363 emission line, which provides a direct measure of the gas-phase metallicity. A primary goal for identifying these rare galaxies is to examine whether the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) between stellar mass, gas metallicity, and star formation rate (SFR) holds for low stellar mass and high SFR galaxies. The FMR suggests that higher SFR galaxies have lower metallicity (at fixed stellar mass). To test this trend, we combine spectroscopic measurements of metallicity and dust-corrected SFRs, with stellar mass estimates from modeling the optical photometry. We find that these galaxies are $1.05pm0.61$ dex above the z~1 stellar mass-SFR relation, and $0.23pm0.23$ dex below the local mass-metallicity relation. Relative to the FMR, the latter offset is reduced to 0.01 dex, but significant dispersion remains (0.29 dex with 0.16 dex due to measurement uncertainties). This dispersion suggests that gas accretion, star formation and chemical enrichment have not reached equilibrium in these galaxies. This is evident by their short stellar mass doubling timescale of $approx100^{+310}_{-75}$ Myr that suggests stochastic star formation. Combining our sample with other z~1 metal-poor galaxies, we find a weak positive SFR-metallicity dependence (at fixed stellar mass) that is significant at 94.4% confidence. We interpret this positive correlation as recent star formation that has enriched the gas, but has not had time to drive the metal-enriched gas out with feedback mechanisms.