The Calibration of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Dust Emission as a Star Formation Rate Indicator in the AKARI NEP Survey
Le résumé fourni par la source
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) dust emission has been proposed as an effective extinction-independent star formation rate (SFR) indicator in the mid-infrared (MIR), but this may depend on conditions in the interstellar medium. The coverage of the AKARI/Infrared Camera (IRC) allows us to study the effects of metallicity, starburst intensity, and active galactic nuclei on PAH emission in galaxies with $f_ν(L18W)\lesssim 19$ AB mag. Observations include follow-up, rest-frame optical spectra of 443 galaxies within the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole survey that have IRC detections from 7-24 $μ$m. We use optical emission line diagnostics to infer SFR based on H$α$ and [O II]$λλ3726,3729$ emission line luminosities. The PAH 6.2 $μ$m and PAH 7.7 $μ$m luminosities ($L(PAH\ 6.2\ μm)$ and $L(PAH\ 7.7\ μm)$, respectively) derived using multi-wavelength model fits are consistent with those derived from slitless spectroscopy within 0.2 dex. $L(PAH\ 6.2\ μm)$ and $L(PAH\ 7.7\ μm)$ correlate linearly with the 24 $μ$m-dust corrected H$α$ luminosity only for normal, star-forming ``main-sequence" galaxies. Assuming multi-linear correlations, we quantify the additional dependencies on metallicity and starburst intensity, which we use to correct our PAH SFR calibrations at $0
Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.