Evolution of cosmic star formation in the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey

Abstract

We present a new exploration of the cosmic star-formation history and dust obscuration in massive galaxies at redshifts $0.5<z<6$. We utilize the deepest 450 and 850$\mu$m imaging from SCUBA-2 CLS, covering 230arcmin${}^2$ in the AEGIS, COSMOS and UDS fields, together with 100-250$\mu$m imaging from Herschel. We demonstrate the capability of the T-PHOT deconfusion code to reach below the confusion limit, using multi-wavelength prior catalogues from CANDELS/3D-HST. By combining IR and UV data, we measure the relationship between total star-formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass up to $z\sim 5$, indicating that UV-derived dust corrections underestimate the SFR in massive galaxies. We investigate the relationship between obscuration and the UV slope (the IRX-$\beta$ relation) in our sample, which is similar to that of low-redshift starburst galaxies, although it deviates at high stellar masses. Our data provide new measurements of the total SFR density (SFRD) in $M_{\ast }>10^{10}{M}_{\odot }$ galaxies at $0.5<z<6$. This is dominated by obscured star formation by a factor of $>10$. One third of this is accounted for by 450$\mu$m-detected sources, while one fifth is attributed to UV-luminous sources (brighter than $L_{UV}^{\ast }$), although even these are largely obscured. By extrapolating our results to include all stellar masses, we estimate a total SFRD that is in good agreement with previous results from IR and UV data at $z\lesssim 3$, and from UV-only data at $z\sim 5$. The cosmic star-formation history undergoes a transition at $z\sim 3-4$, as predominantly unobscured growth in the early Universe is overtaken by obscured star formation, driven by the build-up of the most massive galaxies during the peak of cosmic assembly.

MNRAS Accepted 2017 January 5. 29 pages, 18 figures

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Cited by in corpus (28)

• The Main Sequence of star-forming galaxies across cosmic times
• The Evolution of the IR Luminosity Function and Dust-obscured Star Formation in the Last 13 Billion Years
• The Constant Average Relationship between Dust-obscured Star Formation and Stellar Mass from $z=0$ to $z=2.5$
• The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey Large Program: The Infrared Excess of z=1.5-10 UV-selected Galaxies and the Implied High-Redshift Star Formation History
• Dust attenuation, dust emission, and dust temperature in galaxies at z>=5: a view from the FIRE-2 simulations
• Are high redshift Galaxies hot? - Temperature of z > 5 Galaxies and Implications on their Dust Properties
• The IRX-Beta Dust Attenuation Relation in Cosmological Galaxy Formation Simulations
• The East Asian Observatory SCUBA--2 survey of the COSMOS field: unveiling 1147 bright sub-millimeter sources across 2.6 square degrees
• Dissecting the IRX - $\beta$ dust attenuation relation: exploring the physical origin of observed variations in galaxies
• The properties of the interstellar medium of galaxies across time as traced by the neutral atomic carbon [CI]
• Predictions for the spatial distribution of the dust continuum emission in 1<z<5 star-forming galaxies
• Dissecting the size-mass and ${\Sigma }_1$-mass relations at 1.0 < z < 2.5: galaxy mass profiles and color gradients as a function of spectral shape
• SCUBA-2 Ultra Deep Imaging EAO Survey (STUDIES): Faint-End Counts at 450 um
• The Dust Attenuation of Star-forming Galaxies at $z\sim 3$ and Beyond: New Insights from ALMA Observations
• Probing Cosmic Reionization and Molecular Gas Growth with TIME
• A${}^3$COSMOS: A census on the molecular gas mass and extent of main-sequence galaxies across cosmic time
• Modelling the cosmic spectral energy distribution and extragalactic background light over all time
• The MOSDEF Survey: Implications of the Lack of Evolution in the Dust Attenuation-Mass Relation to z~2
• Diversity of Galaxy Dust Attenuation Curves Drives the Scatter in the IRX-beta Relation
• Studying high-z galaxies with [CII] intensity mapping
• Planck far-infrared detection of Hyper Suprime-Cam protoclusters at $\mathbf{z}\sim 4$: hidden AGN and star formation activity
• Submillimetre galaxies in two massive protoclusters at z = 2.24: witnessing the enrichment of extreme starbursts in the outskirts of HAE density peaks
• An ultra-deep multi-band VLA survey of the faint radio sky (COSMOS-XS): New constraints on the cosmic star formation history
• Resolved CO(1-0) emission and gas properties in luminous dusty star forming galaxies at z=2-4
• An ALMA survey of the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey UKIDSS/UDS field: Dust attenuation in high-redshift Lyman break Galaxies
• Maximising the power of deep extragalactic imaging surveys with the James Webb Space Telescope
• The hot gas distribution, X-ray luminosity and baryon budget in the L-Galaxies semi-analytic model of galaxy formation
• A mock redshift catalogue of the dusty star-forming galaxy population with intrinsic clustering and lensing for deep millimetre surveys