A Controlled Study of Cold Dust Content in Galaxies from z = 0–2
/ Authors
A. Kirkpatrick, A. Pope, A. Sajina, D. Dale, T. Díaz-Santos, C. Hayward, Yong Shi, R. Somerville, S. Stierwalt, L. Armus
and 5 more authors
J. Kartaltepe, D. Kocevski, D. H. Mcintosh, D. Sanders, Lin Yan
/ Abstract
At , the formation of new stars is dominated by dusty galaxies whose far-IR emission indicates they contain colder dust than local galaxies of a similar luminosity. We explore the reasons for the evolving IR emission of similar galaxies over cosmic time using (1) local galaxies from GOALS ( ), (2) galaxies at from 5MUSES ( ), and (3) IR luminous galaxies spanning from GOODS and Spitzer xFLS ( ). All samples have Spitzer mid-IR spectra, and Herschel and ground-based submillimeter imaging covering the full IR spectral energy distribution, allowing us to robustly measure , , and for every galaxy. Despite similar infrared luminosities, dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFG) have a factor of 5 higher dust masses and 5 K colder temperatures. The increase in dust mass is linked to an increase in the gas fractions with redshift, and we do not observe a similar increase in stellar mass or star formation efficiency. , a proxy for , is strongly correlated with independently of redshift. We measure merger classification and galaxy size for a subsample, and there is no obvious correlation between these parameters and or . In DSFG, the change in can fully account for the observed colder dust temperatures, suggesting that any change in the spatial extent of the interstellar medium is a second-order effect.
Journal: The Astrophysical Journal