Dust‐induced Systematic Errors in Ultraviolet‐derived Star Formation Rates | Zendy

Eric F. Bell | Zendy

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Dust‐induced Systematic Errors in Ultraviolet‐derived Star Formation Rates

Author(s) -

Eric F. Bell

Publication year - 2002

Publication title -

the astrophysical journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.376

H-Index - 489

eISSN - 1538-4357

pISSN - 0004-637X

DOI - 10.1086/342127

Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , galaxy , star formation , rest frame , ultraviolet , luminous infrared galaxy , rest (music) , attenuation , astronomy , cosmic cancer database , infrared , redshift , optics , acoustics

Rest-frame far-ultraviolet (FUV) luminosities form the `backbone' of ourunderstanding of star formation at all cosmic epochs. FUV luminosities aretypically corrected for dust by assuming that extinction indicators which havebeen calibrated for local starbursting galaxies apply to all star-forminggalaxies. I present evidence that `normal' star-forming galaxies havesystematically redder UV/optical colors than starbursting galaxies at a givenFUV extinction. This is attributed to differences in star/dust geometry,coupled with a small contribution from older stellar populations. Folding indata for starbursts and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, I conclude that SFrates from rest-frame UV and optical data alone are subject to large (factorsof at least a few) systematic uncertainties because of dust, which cannot bereliably corrected for using only UV/optical diagnostics.Comment: Conference Proceedings: 4 pages with 3 embedded figures. To appear in 'Galaxy evolution: theory and observations', Eds. V. Avila-Reese, C. Firmani, C. Frenk, & C. Allen, RevMexAA SC (2002

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