MAPPING DUST THROUGH EMISSION AND ABSORPTION IN NEARBY GALAXIES

Journal Article · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/771/1/62· OSTI ID:22140189

Kreckel, Kathryn; Groves, Brent; Schinnerer, Eva; Meidt, Sharon E.; Tabatabaei, Fatemeh S. ^[1]; Johnson, Benjamin D. ^[2]; Aniano, Gonzalo ^[3]; Calzetti, Daniela ^[4]; Croxall, Kevin V. ^[5]; Draine, Bruce T. ^[6]; Gordon, Karl D. ^[7]; Crocker, Alison F.; Smith, J. D. T. ^[8]; Dale, Daniel A. ^[9]; Hunt, Leslie K. ^[10]

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1. Max Planck Institut fuer Astronomie, Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
2. Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, 98 bis Bvd Arago, F-75014 Paris (France)
3. Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Batiment 121, Universite Paris-Sud 11 and CNRS (UMR 8617), F-91405 Orsay (France)
4. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
5. Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
6. Princeton University Observatory, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544-1001 (United States)
7. Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
8. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 (United States)
9. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States)
10. INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze (Italy)

Dust has long been identified as a barrier to measuring inherent galaxy properties. However, the link between dust and attenuation is not straightforward and depends on both the amount of dust and its distribution. Herschel imaging of nearby galaxies undertaken as part of the KINGFISH project allows us to map the dust as seen in emission with unprecedented sensitivity and {approx}1 kpc resolution. We present here new optical integral field unit spectroscopy for eight of these galaxies that provides complementary 100-200 pc scale maps of the dust attenuation through observation of the reddening in both the Balmer decrement and the stellar continuum. The stellar continuum reddening, which is systematically less than that observed in the Balmer decrement, shows no clear correlation with the dust, suggesting that the distribution of stellar reddening acts as a poor tracer of the overall dust content. The brightest H II regions are observed to be preferentially located in dusty regions, and we do find a correlation between the Balmer line reddening and the dust mass surface density for which we provide an empirical relation. Some of the high-inclination systems in our sample exhibit high extinction, but we also find evidence that unresolved variations in the dust distribution on scales smaller than 500 pc may contribute to the scatter in this relation. We caution against the use of integrated A{sub V} measures to infer global dust properties.

• OSTI ID: 22140189
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 771, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ABSORPTION
ATTENUATION
BALMER LINES
CORRELATIONS
DENSITY
DISTRIBUTION
DUSTS
EMISSION
GALAXIES
MASS
RESOLUTION
SENSITIVITY
SPECTROSCOPY
SURFACES