Using new homogeneous luminosity functions (LFs) in the far-ultraviolet (FUV) from VVDS and in the far-infrared (FIR) from Herschel/PEP and Herschel/HerMES, we studied the evolution of the dust ...attenuation with redshift. With this information, we were able to estimate the redshift evolution of the total (FUV + FIR) star formation rate density (SFRDTOT). By integrating SFRDTOT, we followed the mass building and analyzed the redshift evolution of the stellar mass density (SMD). This article aims at providing a complete view of star formation from the local Universe to z ~ 4 and, using assumptions on earlier star formation history, compares this evolution with previously published data in an attempt to draw a homogeneous picture of the global evolution of star formation in galaxies. Our main conclusions are that: 1) the dust attenuation AFUV is found to increase from z = 0 to z ~ 1.2 and then starts to decrease until our last data point at z = 3.6; 2) the estimated SFRD confirms published results to z ~ 2. At z > 2, we observe either a plateau or a small increase up to z ~ 3 and then a likely decrease up to z = 3.6; 3) the peak of AFUV is delayed with respect to the plateau of SFRDTOT and a probable origin might be found in the evolution of the bright ends of the FUV and FIR LFs; 4) using assumptions (exponential rise and linear rise with time) for the evolution of the star formation density from z = 3.6 to zform = 10, we integrated SFRDTOT and obtained a good agreement with the published SMDs.
We present new estimates of AGN accretion and star formation (SF) luminosity in galaxies obtained for the local 12 μm sample of Seyfert galaxies (12MGS), by performing a detailed broad-band spectral ...energy distribution (SED) decomposition including the emission of stars, dust heated by SF and a possible AGN dusty torus. Thanks to the availability of data from the X-rays to the sub-millimetre, we constrain and test the contribution of the stellar, AGN and SF components to the SEDs. The availability of Spitzer-InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS) low-resolution mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra is crucial to constrain the dusty torus component at its peak wavelengths. The results of SED fitting are also tested against the available information in other bands: the reconstructed AGN bolometric luminosity is compared to those derived from X-rays and from the high excitation IR lines tracing AGN activity like Ne v and O iv. The IR luminosity due to SF and the intrinsic AGN bolometric luminosity are shown to be strongly related to the IR line luminosity. Variations of these relations with different AGN fractions are investigated, showing that the relation dispersions are mainly due to different AGN relative contribution within the galaxy. Extrapolating these local relations between line and SF or AGN luminosities to higher redshifts, by means of recent Herschel galaxy evolution results, we then obtain mid- and far-IR line luminosity functions useful to estimate how many star-forming galaxies and AGN we expect to detect in the different lines at different redshifts and luminosities with future IR facilities (e.g. JWST, SPICA).
We combined the spectroscopic information from the 3D-HST survey with Herschel data to characterize the Hα dust attenuation properties of a sample of 79 main sequence star-forming galaxies at z ~ 1 ...in the GOODS-S field. The sample was selected in the far-IR at λ = 100 and/or 160 μm and only includes galaxies with a secure Hα detection (S/N > 3). From the low resolution 3D-HST spectra we measured the redshifts and the Hα fluxes for the whole sample. (A factor of 1/1.2 was applied to the observed fluxes to remove the NII contamination.) The stellar masses (M⋆), infrared (LIR), and UV luminosities (LUV) were derived from the spectral energy distributions by fitting multiband data from GALEX near-UV to SPIRE 500 μm. We estimated the continuum extinction Estar(B−V) from both the IRX = LIR/LUV ratio and the UV-slope, β, and found excellent agreement between the two. The nebular extinction was estimated from comparison of the observed SFRHα and SFRUV. We obtained f = Estar(B−V) /Eneb(B−V) = 0.93 ± 0.06, which is higher than the canonical value of f = 0.44 measured in the local Universe. Our derived dust correction produces good agreement between the Hα and IR+UV SFRs for galaxies with SFR ≳ 20M⊙/yr and M⋆ ≳ 5 × 1010M⊙, while objects with lower SFR and M⋆ seem to require a smaller f-factor (i.e. higher Hα extinction correction). Our results then imply that the nebular extinction for our sample is comparable to extinction in the optical-UV continuum and suggest that the f-factor is a function of both M⋆ and SFR, in agreement with previous studies.
We present results from the deepest Herschel-Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) far-infrared blank field extragalactic survey, obtained by combining observations of the Great ...Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) fields from the PACS Evolutionary Probe (PEP) and GOODS-Herschel key programmes. We describe data reduction and theconstruction of images and catalogues. In the deepest parts of the GOODS-S field, the catalogues reach 3σ depths of 0.9, 0.6 and 1.3 mJy at 70, 100 and 160 μm, respectively, and resolve ~75% of the cosmic infrared background at 100 μm and 160 μm into individually detected sources. We use these data to estimate the PACS confusion noise, to derive the PACS number counts down to unprecedented depths, and to determine the infrared luminosity function of galaxies down to LIR = 1011 L⊙ at z ~ 1 and LIR = 1012 L⊙ at z ~ 2, respectively. For the infrared luminosity function of galaxies, our deep Herschel far-infrared observations are fundamental because they provide more accurate infrared luminosity estimates than those previously obtained from mid-infrared observations. Maps and source catalogues (>3σ) are now publicly released. Combined with the large wealth of multi-wavelength data available for the GOODS fields, these data provide a powerful new tool for studying galaxy evolution over a broad range of redshifts.
We have investigated the gas content of a sample of several hundred AGN host galaxies at z < 1 and compared it with a sample of inactive galaxies, matched in bins of stellar mass and redshift. Gas ...masses have been inferred from the dust masses, obtained by stacked Herschel far-IR and sub-mm data in the GOODS and COSMOS fields, under reasonable assumptions and metallicity scaling relations for the dust-to-gas ratio. We find that AGNs are on average hosted in galaxies much more gas rich than inactive galaxies. In the vast majority of stellar mass bins, the average gas content of AGN hosts is higher than that in inactive galaxies. The difference is up to a factor of 10 higher in low-stellar-mass galaxies, with a significance of 6.5σ. In almost half of the AGN sample, the gas content is three times higher than that in the control sample of inactive galaxies. Our result strongly suggests that the probability of having an AGN activated is simply driven by the amount of gas in the host galaxy; this can be explained in simple terms of statistical probability of having a gas cloud falling into the gravitational potential of the black hole. The increased probability of an AGN being hosted by a star-forming galaxy, identified by previous works, may be a consequence of the relationship between gas content and AGN activity, found in this paper, combined with the Schmidt–Kennicutt law for star formation.
ABSTRACT We investigate the co-evolution of the black hole accretion rate (BHAR) and the star formation rate (SFR) in galaxies displaying a greater diversity of star-forming properties compared to ...previous studies. We combine X-ray stacking and far-IR photometry of stellar mass-limited samples of normal star-forming, starburst, and quiescent/quenched galaxies in the COSMOS field. We corroborate the existence of a strong correlation between BHAR (i.e., the X-ray luminosity, LX) and stellar mass (M*) for normal star-forming galaxies, though we find a steeper relation than previously reported. We find that starbursts show a factor of three enhancement in BHAR compared to normal SF galaxies (against a factor of six excess in SFR), while quiescents show a deficit of a factor times 5.5 at a given mass. One possible interpretation of this is that the starburst phase does not coincide with cosmologically relevant BH growth, or that starburst-inducing mergers are more efficient at boosting SFR than BHAR. Contrary to studies based on smaller samples, we find that the BHAR/SFR ratio of main-sequence (MS) galaxies is not mass invariant, but scales weakly as , implying faster BH growth in more massive galaxies at . Furthermore, BHAR/SFR during the starburst is a factor of two lower than in MS galaxies, at odds with the predictions of hydrodynamical simulations of merger galaxies that foresee a sudden enhancement of LX/SFR during the merger. Finally, we estimate that the bulk of the accretion density of the universe at is associated with normal star-forming systems, with only and associated with starburst and quiescent galaxies, respectively.
The black hole-and-galaxy (BH-galaxy) co-evolution paradigm predicts a phase where most of the star formation (SF) and BH accretion takes place in gas-rich environments, namely, in what are likely to ...be very obscured conditions. In the first phase of this growth, some of the galactic gas is funnelled toward the centre of the galaxy and is accreted into the supermassive BH, triggering active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity. The large quantity of gas and dust hides the emission and the AGN appears as an obscured (type 2) AGN. The degree of obscuration in type 2 AGNs may even reach values as high as N H > 10 24 cm −2 (i.e., Compton-thick, CT). Population synthesis models of the X-ray background (XRB) suggest that a large population of CT-AGN is, in fact, needed to explain the still unresolved XRB emission at energy above 20 keV. In this work, we investigated the properties of 94 Ne V 3426 Å-selected type 2 AGN in COSMOS at z = 0.6 − 1.2, performing optical-to-far-infrared (FIR) spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting of COSMOS2020 photometric data to estimate the AGN bolometric luminosity and stellar mass, star formation rate, age of the oldest stars, and molecular gas mass for their host-galaxy. In addition, we performed an X-ray spectral analysis of the 36 X-ray-detected sources to obtain reliable values of the AGN obscuration and intrinsic luminosity, as well as to constrain the AGN properties of the X-ray-undetected sources. We found that more than two-thirds of our sample is composed of very obscured sources ( N H > 10 23 cm −2 ), with about 20% of the sources being candidate CT-AGN and half being AGNs in a strong phase of accretion ( λ Edd > 0.1). We built a mass- and redshift-matched control sample and its comparison with the Ne V sample indicates that the latter has a higher fraction of sources within the main sequence of star-forming galaxies and shows little evidence for AGNs quenching the SF. As the two samples have similar amounts of cold gas available to fuel the SF, this difference points towards a higher efficiency in forming stars in the Ne V -selected sample. The comparison with the prediction from the in situ co-evolution model suggests that Ne V is an effective tool for selecting galaxies in the obscured growth phase of the BH-galaxy co-evolution paradigm. We find that the “quenching phase” is still to come for most of the sample and only few galaxies show evidence of quenched SF activity.
Abstract
We present the C II 158
μ
m line luminosity functions (LFs) at
z
∼ 4–6 using the ALMA observations of 118 sources, which are selected to have UV luminosity
M
1500Å
< −20.2 and optical ...spectroscopic redshifts in COSMOS and ECDF-S. Of the 118 targets, 75 have significant C II detections and 43 are upper limits. This is by far the largest sample of C II detections, which allows us to set constraints on the volume density of C II emitters at
z
∼ 4–6. But because this is a UV-selected sample, we are missing C II-bright but UV-faint sources, making our constraints strict lower limits. Our derived LFs are statistically consistent with the
z
∼ 0 C II LF at 10
8.25
–10
9.75
L
⊙
. We compare our results with the upper limits of the C II LF derived from serendipitous sources in the ALPINE maps. We also infer the C II LFs based on published far-IR and CO LFs at
z
∼ 4–6. Combining our robust lower limits with these additional estimates, we set further constraints on the true number density of C II emitters at
z
∼ 4–6. These additional LF estimates are largely above our LF at
L
CII
> 10
9
L
⊙
, suggesting that UV-faint but C II-bright sources likely make significant contributions to the C II emitter volume density. When we include all the LF estimates, we find that available model predictions underestimate the number densities of C II emitters at
z
∼ 4–6. Finally, we set a constraint on the molecular gas mass density at
z
∼ 4–6, with
ρ
mol
∼ (2–7) × 10
7
M
⊙
Mpc
−3
. This is broadly consistent with previous studies.
Two main modes of star formation are know to control the growth of galaxies: a relatively steady one in disk-like galaxies, defining a tight star formation rate (SFR)-stellar mass sequence, and a ...starburst mode in outliers to such a sequence which is generally interpreted as driven by merging. Such starburst galaxies are rare but have much higher SFRs, and it is of interest to establish the relative importance of these two modes. PACS/Herschel observations over the whole COSMOS and GOODS-South fields, in conjunction with previous optical/near-IR data, have allowed us to accurately quantify for the first time the relative contribution of the two modes to the global SFR density in the redshift interval 1.5 < z < 2.5, i.e., at the cosmic peak of the star formation activity. The logarithmic distributions of galaxy SFRs at fixed stellar mass are well described by Gaussians, with starburst galaxies representing only a relatively minor deviation that becomes apparent for SFRs more than four times higher than on the main sequence. Such starburst galaxies represent only 2% of mass-selected star-forming galaxies and account for only 10% of the cosmic SFR density at z ~ 2. Only when limited to SFR > 1000 M yr--1, off-sequence sources significantly contribute to the SFR density (46% ? 20%). We conclude that merger-driven starbursts play a relatively minor role in the formation of stars in galaxies, whereas they may represent a critical phase toward the quenching of star formation and morphological transformation in galaxies.
We present a new backward evolution model for galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the infrared (IR). What is new in this model is the separate study of the evolutionary properties of ...different IR populations (i.e. spiral galaxies, starburst galaxies, low-luminosity AGNs, 'unobscured' type 1 AGNs and 'obscured' type 2 AGNs) defined through a detailed analysis of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of large samples of IR-selected sources. The evolutionary parameters have been constrained by means of all the available observables from surveys in the mid- and far-IR (source counts, redshift and luminosity distributions, luminosity functions). By decomposing the SEDs representative of the three AGN classes into three distinct components (a stellar component emitting most of its power in the optical/near-IR, an AGN component due to the hot dust heated by the central black hole peaking in the mid-IR, and a starburst component dominating the far-IR spectrum), we have disentangled the AGN contribution to the monochromatic and total IR luminosity emitted by different populations considered in our model from that due to star formation activity. We have then obtained an estimate of the total IR luminosity density and star formation density (SFD) produced by IR galaxies and the first ever estimate of the black hole mass accretion density (BHAR) from the IR. The derived evolution of the BHAR is in agreement with estimates from X-rays, though the BHAR values we derive from the IR are slightly higher than the X-ray ones. Finally, we have simulated source counts, redshift distributions, and SFD and BHAR that we expect to obtain with the future cosmological surveys in the mid-/far-IR that will be performed with the JWST-MIRI and SPICA-SAFARI. Outputs of the model are available online.1