Dust, CO and [CI]: Cross-calibration of molecular gas mass tracers in metal-rich galaxies across cosmic time

Abstract

We present a self-consistent cross-calibration of the three main molecular gas mass tracers in galaxies, the ${}^{12}\mathrm{CO}$(1-0), [CI](${}^3{P}_1$-${}^3{P}_0$) lines, and the submm dust continuum emission, using a sample of 407 galaxies, ranging from local disks to submillimetre-selected galaxies (SMGs) up to $z\approx 6$. A Bayesian method is used to produce galaxy-scale universal calibrations of these molecular gas indicators, that hold over 3-4 orders of magnitude in infrared luminosity, $L_{\mathrm{IR}}$. Regarding the dust continuum, we use a mass-weighted dust temperature, $T_{\mathrm{mw}}$, determined using new empirical relations between temperature and luminosity. We find the average $L/M_{\mathrm{mol}}$ gas mass conversion factors to be ${\alpha }_{850}=6.9\times 10^{12}\mathrm{W}\mathrm{H}{\mathrm{z}}^{-1}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }^{-1}$, ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CO}}=4{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}\mathrm{p}{\mathrm{c}}^2{)}^{-1}$ and ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CI}}=17.0{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}\mathrm{p}{\mathrm{c}}^2{)}^{-1}$, based on the assumption that the mean dust properties of the sample (${\kappa }_H$ = gas-to-dust ratio/dust emissivity) will be similar to those of local metal rich galaxies and the MW. The tracer with the least intrinsic scatter is [CI](1-0), while CO(1-0) has the highest. The conversion factors show a weak but significant correlation with $L_{\mathrm{IR}}$. Assuming dust properties typical of metal-rich galaxies, we infer a neutral carbon abundance $X_{\mathrm{CI}}=[C^0/\mathrm{mol}]=1.6\times 10^{-5}$, similar to that in the MW. We find no evidence for bimodality of ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CO}}$ between main-sequence (MS) galaxies and those with extreme star-formation intensity, i.e. ULIRGs and SMGs. The means of the three conversion factors are found to be similar between MS galaxies and ULIRGs/SMGs, to within 10-20%. We show that for metal-rich galaxies, near-universal average values for ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CO}}$, $X_{\mathrm{CI}}$ and ${\kappa }_H$ are adequate for global molecular gas estimates.

42 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Abstract abridged. Data tables will be available on CDS imminently. Minor changes from proof stage including swapping order of Tables 8 and 9 and small corrections to the bibliography

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