Mid- to far infrared properties of star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei

Abstract

We study the mid- to far-IR properties of a 24um-selected flux-limited sample (S24 > 5mJy) of 154 intermediate redshift (<z>~0.15), infrared luminous galaxies, drawn from the 5MUSES survey. By combining existing mid-IR spectroscopy and new Herschel SPIRE submm photometry from the HerMES program, we derived robust total infrared luminosity (LIR) and dust mass (Md) estimates and infered the relative contribution of the AGN to the infrared energy budget of the sources. We found that the total infrared emission of galaxies with weak 6.2um PAH emission (EW<0.2um) is dominated by AGN activity, while for galaxies with EW>0.2um more than 50% of the LIR arises from star formation. We also found that for galaxies detected in the 250-500um Herschel bands an AGN has a statistically insignificant effect on the temperature of the cold dust and the far-IR colours of the host galaxy, which are primarily shaped by star formation activity. For star-forming galaxies we reveal an anti-correlation between the LIR-to-rest-frame 8um luminosity ratio, IR8 = LIR\L8, and the strength of PAH features. We found that this anti-correlation is primarily driven by variations in the PAHs emission, and not by variations in the 5-15um mid-IR continuum emission. Using the [NeIII]/[NeII] line ratio as a tracer of the hardness of the radiation field, we confirm that galaxies with harder radiation fields tend to exhibit weaker PAH features, and found that they have higher IR8 values and higher dust-mass-weighted luminosities (LIR/Md), the latter being a proxy for the dust temperature (Td). We argue that these trends originate either from variations in the environment of the star-forming regions or are caused by variations in the age of the starburst. Finally, we provide scaling relations that will allow estimating LIR, based on single-band observations with the mid-infrared instrument, on board the upcoming JWST.

Accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (20)

• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• Dust Masses, PAH Abundances, and Starlight Intensities in the SINGS Galaxy Sample
• The Cosmic Infrared Background Resolved by Spitzer. Contributions of Mid-Infrared Galaxies to the Far-Infrared Background
• Mid-IR Galaxy Classification Based on Silicate Obscuration and PAH Equivalent Width
• Mid-Infrared Spectral Diagnosis of Submillimeter Galaxies
• Spitzer Quasar and ULIRG Evolution Study (QUEST): II. The Spectral Energy Distributions of Palomar-Green Quasars
• Variations of the Mid-IR Aromatic Features Inside and Among Galaxies
• High resolution mid-infrared spectroscopy of ultraluminous infrared galaxies
• Spitzer Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy of Infrared Luminous Galaxies at z~2 I: the Spectra
• A Spitzer IRS Low-Resolution Spectroscopic Search for Buried AGNs in Nearby Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies - A Constraint on Geometry between Energy Sources and Dust -
• Star formation in the hosts of high-z QSOs: Evidence from Spitzer PAH detections
• The nature of star formation in distant ultraluminous infrared galaxies selected in a remarkably narrow redshift range
• Spitzer Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy of Infrared Luminous Galaxies at z~2 II: Diagnostics
• PAH Emission from Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• AGN and Starburst Classification from Spitzer Mid-Infrared Spectra for High Redshift SWIRE Sources
• The Spitzer Space Telescope Extra-Galactic First Look Survey: 24 micron data reduction, catalog, and source identification
• Mid-infrared spectroscopy of infrared-luminous galaxies at z~0.5-3
• Strong PAH Emission from z~2 ULIRGs
• IRS Spectroscopy and Multi-wavelength Study of Luminous Star-forming Galaxies at z~1.9
• The ~0.9 mJy sample: A mid-infrared spectroscopic catalog of 150 infrared-luminous, 24 micron selected galaxies at 0.3<z<3.5

Cited by in corpus (42)

• A Two-Parameter Model for the Infrared/Submillimeter/Radio Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies and AGN
• The HDUV Survey: A Revised Assessment of the Relationship between UV Slope and Dust Attenuation for High-Redshift Galaxies
• Tracing the cosmic growth of super massive black holes to z ~ 3 with Herschel
• On the dust temperatures of high redshift galaxies
• On the Gas Content and Efficiency of AGN Feedback in Low-redshift Quasars
• Mid-Infrared Properties of Luminous Infrared Galaxies II: Probing the Dust and Gas Physics of the GOALS Sample
• Measures of galaxy dust and gas mass with Herschel photometry and prospects for ALMA
• How dead are dead galaxies? Mid-Infrared fluxes of quiescent galaxies at redshift 0.3 < z < 2.5: implications for star formation rates and dust heating
• The 31 Deg${}^2$ Release of the Stripe 82 X-ray Survey: The Point Source Catalog
• Mapping the average AGN accretion rate in the SFR-M* plane for Herschel selected galaxies at 0<z<2.5
• A Far-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of Intermediate Redshift (Ultra) Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Dust and Gas in Star Forming Galaxies at z~3 - Extending Galaxy Uniformity to 11.5 Billion Years
• Star formation history, dust attenuation and extragalactic background light
• Resolving the AGN and host emission in the mid-infrared using a model-independent spectral decomposition
• Star Formation in Luminous Quasars at 2<z<3
• Early Science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: CO and [C II] Emission in the z=4.3 AzTEC J095942.9+022938 (COSMOS AzTEC-1)
• PAHs as tracers of the molecular gas in star-forming galaxies
• The MOSDEF Survey: Metallicity Dependence of the PAH Emission at High Redshift and Implications for 24 micron-inferred IR Luminosities and Star Formation Rates at z~2
• Star formation laws in both Galactic massive clumps and external galaxies: An extensive study with dust continuum, HCN (4-3), and CS (7-6)
• The Contribution of Host Galaxies to the Infrared Energy Output of $z\gtrsim 5.0$ QUASARS
• VALES: III. The calibration between the dust continuum and interstellar gas content of star-forming galaxies
• The Evolving Interstellar Medium of Star-Forming Galaxies, as traced by $\text{Stardust}$
• Radio continuum properties of luminous infrared galaxies. Identifying the presence of an AGN in the radio
• Herschel observations of gamma-ray burst host galaxies: implications for the topology of the dusty interstellar medium
• The evolving AGN duty cycle in galaxies since z$\sim$3 as encoded in the X-ray luminosity function
• Extinction in the 11.2 micron PAH band and the low L_11.2/L_IR in ULIRGs
• The molecular gas properties in local Seyfert 2 galaxies
• The post-Herschel view of intrinsic AGN emission: constructing templates for galaxy and AGN emission at IR wavelengths
• A controlled study of cold dust content in galaxies from $z=0-2$
• Detailed modelling of a large sample of Herschel sources in the Lockman Hole: identification of cold dust and of lensing candidates through their anomalous SEDs
• A Very Large Array Survey of Luminous Extranuclear Star-forming Regions in Luminous Infrared Galaxies in GOALS
• Early Science with the Large Millimeter Telescope: Exploring the Effect of AGN Activity on the Relationships Between Molecular Gas, Dust, and Star Formation
• Accretion-Inhibited Star Formation in the Warm Molecular Disk of the Green-valley Elliptical Galaxy NGC 3226
• Environmental Effect on the Interstellar Medium in Galaxies across the Cosmic Web at z=0.73
• IR characteristic emission and dust properties of star-forming galaxies at 4.5 $<$ z $<$ 6.2
• Does AGN Fraction Depend on Redshift or Luminosity? An Extinction-Free Test by 18-band Mid-infrared SED Fitting in the AKARI NEP Wide Field
• Active Galactic Nuclei and their Role in Galaxy Evolution: The Infrared Perspective
• On the intrinsic AGN emission in far-infrared/sub-mm
• The Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions of Red W1-W2 Galaxies
• Ultra-violet photo-ionisation in far-infrared selected sources
• A Submillimeter Continuum Survey of Local Dust-Obscured Galaxies
• Study of central light distribution in nearby early-type galaxies hosting nuclear star clusters