Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21840302l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #403.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We investigate the average physical properties and star formation histories (SFHs) of the most UV-luminous star-forming galaxies at z 3.7. Our results are based on the average spectral energy distributions (SEDs), constructed from stacked optical to infrared photometry, of a sample of the 1,913 most UV-luminous star-forming galaxies found in 5.3 square degrees of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey. We find that the shape of the average SED in the rest-optical and infrared is fairly constant with UV luminosity: i.e., more UV luminous galaxies are, on average, also more luminous at longer wavelengths. In the rest-UV, however, the spectral slope beta; measured at 0.13 -0.28 um rises steeply with the median UV luminosity from -1.8 at L L* to -1.2 (L 4-5L*). We use population synthesis analyses to derive their average physical properties and find that: (1) L_UV, and thus star-formation rates (SFRs), scale closely with stellar mass such that more UV-luminous galaxies are more massive; (2) The median ages indicate that the stellar populations are relatively young (200-400 Myr) and show little correlation with UV luminosity; and (3) More UV-luminous galaxies are dustier than their less-luminous counterparts, such that L 4-5L* galaxies are extincted up to A(1600)=2 mag while L L* galaxies have A(1600)=0.7-1.5 mag. We argue that the average SFHs of UV-luminous galaxies are better described by models in which SFR increases with time in order to simultaneously reproduce the tight correlation between the UV-derived SFR and stellar mass, and their universally young ages. We demonstrate the potential of measurements of the SFR-M* relation at multiple redshifts to discriminate between simple models of SFHs. Finally, we discuss the fate of these UV-brightest galaxies in the next 1-2 Gyr and their possible connection to the most massive galaxies at z 2.
Bian Fuyan
Brodwin Mark
Brown Michael J. I.
Cooper Martin C.
Cooray Asantha
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