Dust attenuation of the nebular regions and optical emission lines of $z\sim 2$ star-forming galaxies

Abstract

We use a sample of 149 spectroscopically confirmed UV-selected galaxies at $z\sim 2$ to investigate the relative dust attenuation of the stellar continuum and the nebular emission lines. For each galaxy in the sample, at least one rest-frame optical emission line (H$\alpha$/[NII]$\lambda 6583$ or [OIII]$\lambda 5007$) measurement has been taken from the litterature, and 41 galaxies have additional Spitzer/MIPS 24$\mu$m observations that are used to infer infrared luminosities. We use a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code that predicts nebular line strengths when fitting the stellar populations of galaxies in our sample, and we perform comparisons between the predictions of our models and the observed/derived physical quantities. We find that on average our code is able to reproduce all the physical quantities (e.g., UV $\beta$ slopes, infrared luminosities, emission line fluxes), but we need to apply a higher dust correction to the nebular emission compared to the stellar emission for the largest SFR ($\log {(SFR/M}_{\odot }{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1})>1.87$, Salpeter IMF). We find a correlation between SFR and the difference in nebular and stellar color excesses, which could resolve the discrepant results regarding nebular dust correction at $z\sim 2$ from previous results.

14 pages, 17 figures, paper updated addressing referee comments, two new figures (fig.6 and fig13), main results unchanged. Accepted for publication in ApJ

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• The GREATS H$\beta$+[OIII] Luminosity Function and Galaxy Properties at $\mathbf{z}\sim 8$: Walking the Way of JWST
• Are high redshift Galaxies hot? - Temperature of z > 5 Galaxies and Implications on their Dust Properties
• The MOSDEF Survey: The First Direct Measurements of the Nebular Dust Attenuation Curve at High Redshift
• The host dark matter halos of [OII] emitters at 0.5< z< 1.5
• The Effects of Stellar Population and Gas Covering Fraction on the Emergent Lyman Alpha Emission of High-Redshift Galaxies
• A JWST/NIRSpec Exploration of the Connection between Ionization Parameter, Electron Density, and Star-Formation-Rate Surface Density in z=2.7-6.3 Galaxies
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• On the different levels of dust attenuation to nebular and stellar light in star-forming galaxies
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• Revisiting Attenuation Curves: the Case of NGC 3351
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• Physics of a clumpy lensed galaxy at z=1.6
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• UNITSIM-Galaxies: data release and clustering of emission-line galaxies