Issue |
A&A
Volume 383, Number 3, MarchI 2002
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 801 - 812 | |
Section | Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies) | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011832 | |
Published online | 15 March 2002 |
Star formation and dust extinction in nearby star-forming and starburst galaxies
1
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France e-mail: alessandro.boselli@astrsp-mrs.fr
2
Universita degli studi di Milano-Bicocca, Dipatimento di Fisica, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy e-mail: giuseppe.gavazzi@mib.infn.it; cristian.bonfanti@mib.infn.it
Corresponding author: V. Buat, veronique.buat@astrsp-mrs.fr,
Received:
28
August
2001
Accepted:
18
December
2001
We study the star formation rate and dust extinction properties of
a sample of nearby star-forming galaxies as derived from Hα and UV (~2000 Å) observations and we compare them to those of a sample of
starburst
galaxies. The dust extinction in Hα is estimated from the Balmer
decrement and the extinction in UV using the FIR to UV flux ratio or the
attenuation law for starburst galaxies of Calzetti et al. ([CITE]).
The Hα and UV emissions are strongly correlated with a very low scatter
for the star-forming objects and with a much higher scatter for the starburst
galaxies. The Hα to UV flux ratio is found to be larger by a factor ~2
for the
starburst galaxies. We compare both samples with a purely UV selected sample of
galaxies and we conclude that the mean Hα and UV properties of nearby
star-forming galaxies are more representative of UV-selected galaxies than
starburst galaxies.
We emphasize that the Hα to UV flux ratio is
strongly dependent on the dust extinction: the positive correlation found
between and
vanishes when the
Hα and UV flux are corrected for dust extinction. The Hα to UV
flux ratios converted into star formation rate and combined with the Balmer
decrement measurements are tentatively used to estimate the dust extinction in UV.
Key words: galaxies: starburst / ISM: dust extinction / galaxies: stellar content
© ESO, 2002
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