Dust Attenuation Curve for Local Subgalactic Star-forming Regions

Teklu, Berzaf Berhane; Lin, Zhoubin; Kong, Xu; Wang, Enci; Gao, Yongheng; Liu, Qing; Hu, Ning; Liu, Haiyang

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab7f27

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…In the past decade, many efforts have been devoted to addressing the relationships between the features of dust attenuation curves and galaxy properties. The slope of the dust attenuation curve was reported to depend on stellar mass (Zeimann et al 2015), star formation rate (SFR; Teklu et al 2020), specific SFR (sSFR = SFR/M * ; Reddy et al 2015;Battisti et al 2017b;Rezaee et al 2021), metallicity (Battisti et al 2017b;Shivaei et al 2020), as well as inclination (Wild et al 2011;Battisti et al 2017aBattisti et al , 2020. However, some correlations remain controversial or inconsistent with each other, partially due to inconsistent datasets and methods used for drawing the conclusions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting

Qin

Zheng

Fang

et al. 2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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While the slope of the dust attenuation curve (δ) is found to correlate with effective dust attenuation (AV) as obtained through spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, it remains unknown how the fitting degeneracies shape this relation. We examine the degeneracy effects by fitting SEDs of a sample of local star-forming galaxies (SFGs) selected from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey, in conjunction with mock galaxy SEDs of known attenuation parameters. A well-designed declining starburst star formation history is adopted to generate model SED templates with intrinsic UV slope (β0) spanning over a reasonably wide range. The best-fitting β0 for our sample SFGs shows a wide coverage, dramatically differing from the limited range of β0 < −2.2 for a starburst of constant star formation. Our results show that strong degeneracies between β0, δ, and AV in the SED fitting induce systematic biases leading to a false AV–δ correlation. Our simulation tests reveal that this relationship can be well reproduced even when a flat AV–δ relation is taken to build the input model galaxy SEDs. The variations in best-fitting δ are dominated by the fitting errors. We show that assuming a starburst with constant star formation in SED fitting will result in a steeper attenuation curve, smaller degeneracy errors, and a stronger AV–δ relation. Our findings confirm that the AV–δ relation obtained through SED fitting is likely driven by the systematic biases induced by the fitting degeneracies between β0, δ, and AV.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting

Qin

Zheng

Fang

et al. 2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…UV-to-NIR attenuation curves have been derived for classes of galaxies using the "pair method": attenuated SEDs are compared with intrinsic (unattenuated or dust-free) SEDs within the same galaxy class to derive the attenuation curve (e.g., Calzetti et al 1994;Wild et al 2011;Reddy et al 2015;Scoville et al 2015;Battisti et al 2016Battisti et al , 2017aShivaei et al 2020b;Teklu et al 2020). In this context, a "class" is a set of galaxies whose intrinsic stellar population SEDs can be reasonably assumed to be the same across the class.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Attenuation Curves: The Case of NGC 3351*

Calzetti

Battisti

Shivaei

et al. 2021

ApJ

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Multiwavelength images from the far-UV (∼0.15 μm) to the submillimeter of the central region of the galaxy NGC 3351 are analyzed to constrain its stellar populations and dust attenuation. Despite hosting a ∼1 kpc circumnuclear starburst ring, NGC 3351 deviates from the IRX-β relation, the relation between the infrared-to-UV luminosity ratio and the UV continuum slope β that other starburst galaxies follow. To understand the reason for the deviation, we leverage the high angular resolution of archival near-UV-to-near-IR Hubble Space Telescope images to divide the ring into ∼60-180 pc size regions and model each individually. We find that the UV slope of the combined intrinsic (dust-free) stellar populations in the central region is redder than what is expected for a young model population. This is due to the region's complex star formation history, which boosts the near-UV emission relative to the far-UV. The resulting net attenuation curve has a UV slope that lies between those of the starburst attenuation curve (Calzetti et al. 2000) and the Small Magellanic Cloud extinction curve; the total-to-selective attenuation value, ¢ R (V ) = 4.93, is larger than both. As found for other star-forming galaxies, the stellar continuum of NGC 3351 is less attenuated than the ionized gas, with E(B − V ) star = 0.40 E(B − V ) gas . The combination of the "red" intrinsic stellar population and the new attenuation curve fully accounts for the location of the central region of NGC 3351 on the IRX-β diagram. Thus, the observed characteristics result from the complex mixture of stellar populations and dust column densities in the circumnuclear region. Despite being a sample of one, these findings highlight the difficulty of defining attenuation curves of general applicability outside the regime of centrally concentrated starbursts.

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“…UV-to-NIR attenuation curves have been derived for classes of galaxies using the 'pair-method': attenuated SEDs are compared with intrinsic (unattenuated or dust-free) SEDs within the same galaxy class to derive the attenuation curve (e.g., Calzetti et al 1994;Wild et al 2011;Reddy et al 2015;Scoville et al 2015;Battisti et al 2016Battisti et al , 2017bTeklu et al 2020;Shivaei et al 2020b). In this context, a 'class' is a set of galaxies whose intrinsic stellar population SEDs can be reasonably assumed to be the same across the class.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pair-method is widely used to derive extinction curves from SEDs of individual stars, so the method is borrowed for application to the more complex conditions of entire galaxies. Different authors have made different choices in regard to the source of intrinsic SED: either observational, derived from the data with the lowest amount of measured dust attenuation (Calzetti et al 1994(Calzetti et al , 2000Wild et al 2011;Reddy et al 2015;Battisti et al 2016;Teklu et al 2020;Shivaei et al 2020b), or theoretical, i.e., derived from models of the expected intrinsic stellar population (Meurer et al 1999;Overzier et al 2011;Scoville et al 2015). Both choices are justifiable within the context of applications discussed in each paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The significant deviations from the IRX-β relation are mirrored by comparable deviations from the SB attenuation curve, measured directly from the UV-to-NIR SEDs of star forming galaxies both at low and high redshift. Several authors report measuring dependency on the galaxy's inclination angle (e.g., Conroy et al 2010;Wild et al 2011;Chevallard et al 2013;Battisti et al 2017a), and on the galaxies stellar populations' age, mass, metallicity, and SFR surface densities (Battisti et al 2016;Reddy et al 2018;Salim et al 2018;Teklu et al 2020;Shivaei et al 2020b;Nersesian et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Revisiting Attenuation Curves: the Case of NGC 3351

Calzetti,

Battisti,

Shivaei

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Multi-wavelength images from the farUV (∼0.15 µm) to the sub-millimeter of the central region of the galaxy NGC 3351 are analyzed to constrain its stellar populations and dust attenuation. Despite hosting a ∼1 kpc circumnuclear starburst ring, NGC 3351 deviates from the IRX-β relation, the relation between the infrared-to-UV luminosity ratio and the UV continuum slope β that other starburst galaxies follow. To understand the reason for the deviation, we leverage the high angular resolution of archival nearUV-to-nearIR HST images to divide the ring into ∼60-180 pc size regions and model each individually. We find that the UV slope of the combined intrinsic (dust-free) stellar populations in the central region is redder than what is expected for a young model population. This is due to the region's complex star formation history, which boosts the nearUV emission relative to the farUV. The resulting net attenuation curve has a UV slope that lies between those of the starburst attenuation curve (Calzetti et al. 2000) and the Small Magellanic Cloud extinction curve; the total-to-selective attenuation value, R (V)=4.93, is larger than both. As found for other star-forming galaxies, the stellar continuum of NGC 3351 is less attenuated than the ionized gas, with E(B-V) star =0.40 E(B-V) gas . The combination of the 'red' intrinsic stellar population and the new attenuation curve fully accounts for the location of the central region of NGC 3351 on the IRX-β diagram. Thus, the observed characteristics result from the complex mixture of stellar populations and dust column densities in the circumnuclear region. Despite being a sample of one, these findings highlight the difficulty of defining attenuation curves of general applicability outside the regime of centrally-concentrated starbursts.

show abstract

Dust Attenuation Curve for Local Subgalactic Star-forming Regions

Cited by 5 publications

References 57 publications

Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting

Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting

Revisiting Attenuation Curves: The Case of NGC 3351*

Revisiting Attenuation Curves: the Case of NGC 3351

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