On the use of far-infrared luminosity as a star formation indicator in galaxies

Details On the use of far-infrared luminosity as a star formation indicator in galaxies On the use of far-infrared luminosity as a star formation indicator in galaxies

Sep 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992apj...396l..69s&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 396, no. 2, Sept. 10, 1992, p. L69-L73.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

97

Far Infrared Radiation, Galactic Structure, H Alpha Line, Star Formation, Color-Color Diagram, Faint Objects, Infrared Cirrus (Astronomy), Interstellar Matter, Spiral Galaxies

Scientific paper

By comparing the H-alpha and far-infrared (FIR) luminosities for an optically selected and magnitude-limited (m B is not greater than 14.5) sample of galaxies, a strong nonlinearity is found in the log L(H-alpha)-log L(FIR) correlation, and a systematic decrease of the L(FIR)/L(H-alpha) ratio from early- to late-type spirals. It is shown that these trends cannot be interpreted in the frame of a single-component model for the FIR emission of galaxies, with the star formation rate as the only parameter, but are consistent with a two-component model, with the cirrus fraction as the second parameter. A decreasing contribution of the cirrus component to L(FIR) toward later types, going from about 86 percent for Sa galaxies to about 3 percent for Sdm galaxies was found. If L(FIR) is to be used as a star formation indicator in galaxies, it needs to corrected, to first order, for the cirrus component, taking into account the morphological type of the galaxy.

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