The infrared luminosity of retired and post-starburst galaxies: A cautionary tale for star formation rate measurements

Abstract

In galaxies with significant ongoing star formation there is an impressively tight correlation between total infrared luminosity (L${}_{TIR}$) and H$\hat{I}\pm$ luminosity (L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$), when H$\hat{I}\pm$ is properly corrected for stellar absorption and dust attenuation. This long-standing result gives confidence that both measurements provide accurate estimates of a galaxy's star formation rate (SFR), despite their differing origins. To test the extent to which this holds in galaxies with lower specific SFR (sSFR=SFR/M${}_{gal}$), we combine optical spectroscopy from the SDSS with multi-wavelength (FUV to FIR) photometric observations from GAMA. We find that L${}_{TIR}$/L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ increases steadily with decreasing H$\hat{I}\pm$ equivalent width (W${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$, a proxy for sSFR), indicating that both luminosities cannot provide a valid measurement of SFR in galaxies below the canonical star-forming sequence. For both `retired galaxies' and `post-starburst galaxies', L${}_{TIR}$/L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ can be up to a factor of 30 larger than for star-forming galaxies. The smooth change in L${}_{TIR}$/L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$, irrespective of star formation history, ionisation or heating source, dust temperature or other properties, suggests that the value of L${}_{TIR}$/L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ is determined by the balance between star-forming regions and ambient interstellar medium contributing to both L${}_{TIR}$ and H$\hat{I}\pm$. It is not a result of the differing timescales of star formation that these luminosities probe. While L${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ can only be used to estimate the SFR for galaxies with $W_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ > 3A (sSFR $\gtrsim 10^{-11.5}$/yr), we argue that the mid- and far-infrared can only be used to estimate the SFR of galaxies on the star-forming sequence with W${}_{H\hat{I}\pm }$ >10A (sSFR $\gtrsim 10^{-10.5}$/yr). We find no evidence for dust obscured star-formation in local post-starburst galaxies.

Accepted in the Open Journal of Astrophysics. 15 pages, 5 figures