[C II] 158 μm EMISSION AS A STAR FORMATION TRACER
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, 2801 West Bancroft Street, Toledo, OH 43606 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 4051 McPherson Laboratory, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA (United Kingdom)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, 2300-RA Leiden (Netherlands)
- Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology, MC 314-6, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States)
- Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, CNRS (UMR8617) Université Paris-Sud 11, Batiment 121, Orsay (France)
- INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze (Italy)
- European Southern Observatory, Karl Schwarzschild Strasse 2, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
The [C II] 157.74 μm transition is the dominant coolant of the neutral interstellar gas, and has great potential as a star formation rate (SFR) tracer. Using the Herschel KINGFISH sample of 46 nearby galaxies, we investigate the relation of [C II] surface brightness and luminosity with SFR. We conclude that [C II] can be used for measurements of SFR on both global and kiloparsec scales in normal star-forming galaxies in the absence of strong active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The uncertainty of the Σ{sub [C} {sub II]} – Σ{sub SFR} calibration is ±0.21 dex. The main source of scatter in the correlation is associated with regions that exhibit warm IR colors, and we provide an adjustment based on IR color that reduces the scatter. We show that the color-adjusted Σ{sub [C} {sub II]} – Σ{sub SFR} correlation is valid over almost five orders of magnitude in Σ{sub SFR}, holding for both normal star-forming galaxies and non-AGN luminous infrared galaxies. Using [C II] luminosity instead of surface brightness to estimate SFR suffers from worse systematics, frequently underpredicting SFR in luminous infrared galaxies even after IR color adjustment (although this depends on the SFR measure employed). We suspect that surface brightness relations are better behaved than the luminosity relations because the former are more closely related to the local far-UV field strength, most likely the main parameter controlling the efficiency of the conversion of far-UV radiation into gas heating. A simple model based on Starburst99 population-synthesis code to connect SFR to [C II] finds that heating efficiencies are 1%-3% in normal galaxies.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364278
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 800, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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