Issue |
A&A
Volume 537, January 2012
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | L5 | |
Number of page(s) | 4 | |
Section | Letters | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201118607 | |
Published online | 16 January 2012 |
Where stars form and live at high redshift: clues from the infrared
1 Laboratoire AIM-Paris-Saclay, CEA/DSM/Irfu, CNRS, Univ. Paris Diderot, Saclay, France
e-mail: matthieu.bethermin@cea.fr
2 Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Bat. 121, 91405 Orsay, France ;
Université Paris-Sud 11 and CNRS (UMR8617), France
3 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA
4 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Received: 7 December 2011
Accepted: 24 December 2011
The relation between dark matter halos and the loci of star formation at high redshift is a pressing question in contemporary cosmology. Matching the abundance of halos to the abundance of infrared (IR) galaxies, we explore the link between dark matter halo mass (Mh), stellar mass (M⋆) and star-formation rate (SFR) up to a redshift of 2. Our findings are five-fold. First, we find a strong evolution of the relation between M⋆ and SFR as a function of redshift with an increase of sSFR = SFR/M⋆ by a factor ~30 between z = 0 and z = 2.3. Second, we observe a decrease of sSFR with stellar mass. These results reproduce observed trends at redshift z > 0.3. Third, we find that the star formation is most efficient in dark matter halos with Mh ≃ 5 × 1011 M⊙, with hints of an increase of this mass with redshift. Fourth, we find that SFR/Mh increases by a factor ~15 between z = 0 and z = 2.3. Finally we find that the SFR density is dominated by halo masses close to ~7 × 1011 M⊙ at all redshift, with a rapid decrease at lower and higher halo masses. Despite its simplicity, our novel use of IR observations unveils some characteristic mass-scales governing star formation at high redshift.
Key words: galaxies: star formation / galaxies: statistics / galaxies: halos / dark matter / infrared: galaxies
© ESO, 2012
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