Estimating the total infrared luminosity of galaxies up to z from mid- and far-infrared observations

¹ Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Bât. 121, Université Paris-Sud 11 and CNRS (UMR 8617), 91405 Orsay Cedex, France e-mail: nicolas.bavouzet@ias.u-psud.fr
² Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
³ Institute of Astronomy, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
⁴ Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

Received: 16 May 2007
Accepted: 9 November 2007

Abstract

Aims.We present the observed correlations between rest-frame 8, 24, 70 and 160 μm monochromatic luminosities and measured total infrared luminosities L_IR of galaxies detected by Spitzer.

Methods.Our sample consists of 372 star-forming galaxies with individual detections and flux measurements at 8, 24, 70 and 160 μm. We have spectroscopic redshifts for 93% of these sources, and accurate photometric redshifts for the remainder. We also used a stacking analysis to measure the IR fluxes of fainter sources at higher redshifts.

Results.We show that the monochromatic mid and far-infrared luminosities are strongly correlated with the total infrared luminosity and our stacking analysis confirms that these correlations also hold at higher redshifts. We provide relations between monochromatic luminosities and total infrared luminosities L_IR that should be reliable up to () for ULIRGs (LIRGs). In particular, we can predict L_IR with accuracies of 37% and 54% from the 8 and 24 μm fluxes, while the best tracer is the 70 μm flux. Combining bands leads to slightly more accurate estimates. For example, combining the 8 and 24 μm luminosities predicts L_IR with an accuracy of 34%. Our results are generally compatible with previous studies, and the small changes are probably due to differences in the sample selection criteria. We can rule out strong evolution in dust properties with redshift up to . Finally, we show that infrared and sub-millimeter observations are complementary means of building complete samples of star-forming galaxies, with the former being more sensitive for and the latter at higher .