The Dust Content and Temperature Distribution of Galaxies in The Local Universe

The best way to determine the dust content of galaxies is by measuring their emission in the FIR and submm regions. Unfortunately, there is a strong degeneracy between dust mass and temperature; in order to determine the amount and temperature distribution of dust in a reliable way, a good spectral coverage of the entire FIR-submm SED is necessary. We use a dataset extracted from the Extended 12 Micron Galaxy Sample, for which the spectral energy distribution has been measured out to 200 µm with IRAS and ISO. This sample consists of representative subsamples of Seyfert 1, Seyfert 2, starburst and normal disc galaxies in the the Local Universe, and hence is ideal to study the dust content of galaxies of different classes. We extended some of the SEDs with additional 450 and 850 µm fluxes, measured with SCUBA on the JCMT. We apply several methods to measure the dust content and temperature distribution from the observed SEDs. We find clear evidence for cold dust in our galaxy sample. Additional long wavelength data are particularly important for constraining the dust content and temperature distribution in these galaxies.