Distribution of Star Formation in Distant Galaxies

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The distribution in the Star Formation Rates (SFR) of distant galaxies are presented based on integral field unit observations with the GMOS-IFU on Gemini. Galaxies from the HDF and SA68 with redshifts between 0.6 and 0.8 were selected based on the presence and strength of H-beta and [OII]3727 emission lines measured in Keck/LRIS slit spectra. From the sample of 10 galaxies, only the bluest sources show [OII] in the IFU data regardless of total galaxy luminosity. The [OII] emission is distributed in an arc-like structure several kiloparsecs in scale. We posit that the brightest galaxies in the sample do not show significant emission lines possibly because the star formation is distributed uniformly across the disk at a lower intensity than the detection limit of the IFU. Moreover, the amount of extinction in brighter galaxies is likely to be larger and thus the star-forming sites may be highly obscured contributing to the non-detection of these optical lines in the IFU. At this redshift range, we identify two distinct modes of star formation among this seemingly homogenous group of z=0.7 star-forming galaxies. The sample of galaxies is being extended to include more IFU spectra from the Gemini Science Archive. By increasing the sample, we expect to characterize these modes of star formation which could be high-redshift counterparts of the U/LIRGs and dwarf starburst galaxies like NGC 1569 and NGC 4449.
The authors wish to acknowledge funds provided by the Cottrell Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation (AST 0909240).

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