Issue |
A&A
Volume 372, Number 2, June III 2001
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 427 - 437 | |
Section | Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies) | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20010498 | |
Published online | 15 June 2001 |
The relationship between star formation rates and mid-infrared emission in galactic disks*
1
DAPNIA/Service d'Astrophysique, CEA/Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
2
Observatoire de Marseille, 2 place Le Verrier, 13248 Marseille Cedex 4, France
Corresponding author: H. Roussel, hroussel@cea.fr
Received:
2
February
1999
Accepted:
19
March
2001
The Hα and mid-infrared mean disk surface brightnesses are compared in a sample of nearby spirals observed by ISOCAM. This shows that, in spiral disks, dust emission at 7 and 15 μm provides a reasonable star formation tracer. The fact that the 15 to 7 μm flux ratio is nearly constant in various global exciting conditions indicates a common origin, namely the aromatic infrared band carriers, and implies that at these wavelengths, dust emission from the disks of normal galaxies is dominated by photodissociation regions and not by Hii regions themselves. We use this newly-found correlation between the mid-infrared and the Hα line to investigate the nature of the link between the far-infrared (60 and 100 μm) and Hα. Although the separation of the central regions from the disk is impossible to achieve in the far-infrared, we show that a circumnuclear contribution to the dust emission, having no equivalent counterpart in Hα, is most likely responsible for the well-known non-linearity between far-infrared and Hα fluxes in spiral galaxies. We derive a calibration of 7 and 15 μm fluxes in terms of star formation rates from a primary calibration of Hα in the literature, and also outline the applicability limits of the proposed conversion, which should not be blindly extrapolated to objects whose nature is unknown.
Key words: galaxies: spiral / galaxies: ISM / stars: formation / infrared: ISM
© ESO, 2001
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.