ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: The Infrared Excess of UV-Selected z = 2-10 Galaxies as a Function of UV-Continuum Slope and Stellar Mass
Abstract
We make use of deep 1.2 mm continuum observations (12.7 μJy beam-1 rms) of a 1 arcmin2 region in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field to probe dust-enshrouded star formation from 330 Lyman-break galaxies spanning the redshift range z = 2-10 (to ∼2-3 M ⊙ yr-1 at 1σ over the entire range). Given the depth and area of ASPECS, we would expect to tentatively detect 35 galaxies, extrapolating the Meurer z ∼ 0 IRX-β relation to z ≥ 2 (assuming dust temperature T d ∼ 35 K). However, only six tentative detections are found at z ≳ 2 in ASPECS, with just three at >3σ. Subdividing our z = 2-10 galaxy samples according to stellar mass, UV luminosity, and UV-continuum slope and stacking the results, we find a significant detection only in the most massive (>109.75 M ⊙) subsample, with an infrared excess (IRX = L IR/L UV) consistent with previous z ∼ 2 results. However, the infrared excess we measure from our large selection of sub-L ∗ (<109.75 M ⊙) galaxies is {0.11}-0.42+0.32 ± 0.34 (bootstrap and formal uncertainties) and {0.14}-0.14+0.15 ± 0.18 at z = 2-3 and z = 4-10, respectively, lying below even an IRX-β relation for the Small Magellanic Cloud (95% confidence). These results demonstrate the relevance of stellar mass for predicting the IR luminosity of z ≳ 2 galaxies. We find that the evolution of the IRX-stellar mass relationship depends on the evolution of the dust temperature. If the dust temperature increases monotonically with redshift (\propto {(1+z)}0.32) such that T d ∼ 44-50 K at z ≥ 4, current results are suggestive of little evolution in this relationship to z ∼ 6. We use these results to revisit recent estimates of the z ≥ 3 star formation rate density.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/833/1/72
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1606.05280
- Bibcode:
- 2016ApJ...833...72B
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: evolution;
- galaxies: ISM;
- galaxies: star formation;
- galaxies: statistics;
- instrumentation: interferometers;
- submillimeter: galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 33 pages, 19 figures, 14 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ, updated to match version in press, paper VI of the ASPECS (ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field) series