The Star Formation Reference Survey-V: the effect of extinction, stellar mass, metallicity, and nuclear activity on star-formation rates based on H$\alpha$ emission

Abstract

We present new H$\alpha$ photometry for the Star-Formation Reference Survey (SFRS), a representative sample of star-forming galaxies in the local Universe. Combining these data with the panchromatic coverage of the SFRS, we provide calibrations of H$\alpha$-based star-formation rates (SFRs) with and without correction for the contribution of [${\mathrm{N}}_{{}^{\mathrm{II}}}$] emission. We consider the effect of extinction corrections based on the Balmer decrement, infrared excess (IRX), and spectral energy distribution (SED) fits. We compare the SFR estimates derived from SED fits, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, hybrid indicators such as 24 $\mu$m + H$\alpha$, 8 $\mu$m + H$\alpha$, FIR + FUV, and H$\alpha$ emission for a sample of purely star-forming galaxies. We provide a new calibration for 1.4 GHz-based SFRs by comparing to the H$\alpha$ emission, and we measure a dependence of the radio-to-H$\alpha$ emission ratio based on galaxy stellar mass. Active galactic nuclei introduce biases in the calibrations of different SFR indicators but have only a minimal effect on the inferred SFR densities from galaxy surveys. Finally, we quantify the correlation between galaxy metallicity and extinction.

20 pages, 21 Figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Star-formation rate and stellar mass calibrations based on infrared photometry and their dependence on stellar population age and extinction
• The miniJPAS survey: Identification and characterization of the emission line galaxies down to $z<0.35$ in the AEGIS field
• Optical polarization from colliding stellar stream shocks in a tidal disruption event
• Blueberry galaxies up to 200 Mpc and their optical and infrared properties
• Radio properties of Green Pea galaxies
• Detecting intermediate mass black holes in midiquasars with current and future surveys
• Gas excitation in galaxies and active galactic nuclei with He IIλ4686 and X-ray emission
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• The Calibration of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Dust Emission as a Star Formation Rate Indicator in the AKARI NEP Survey
• Gamma Analytical Modeling Evolution (GAME) I: The physical implications of deriving the stellar mass functions from z=0 to z=8
• Starburst galaxies in the Hydra I cluster