A&A 394, 807-822 (2002)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20021234
J.-L. Vergely1 - A. Lançon1 - Mouhcine1
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg (UMR 7550), 11 rue de l'Université, 67000 Strasbourg, France
Received 17 July 2001 / Accepted 26 August 2002
Abstract
We develop a non-parametric inverse method
to investigate the star formation rate, the metallicity evolution and
the reddening properties of galaxies based on their spectral energy
distributions (SEDs).
This approach allows us to clarify the level of information
present in the data, depending on its signal-to-noise ratio.
When low resolution SEDs are available in the ultraviolet, optical and
near-IR wavelength ranges together,
we conclude that it is possible to constrain the star formation rate and
the effective dust optical depth simultaneously with a signal-to-noise
ratio of 25. With excellent signal-to-noise ratios, the age-metallicity
relation can also be constrained.
We apply this method to the well-known nuclear starburst in
the interacting galaxy NGC 7714. We focus on deriving the star formation history
and the
reddening law. We confirm that classical extinction models
cannot provide an acceptable simultaneous fit of the SED and the lines.
We also confirm that, with the adopted population synthesis
models and in addition to the current starburst,
an episode of enhanced star formation that started
more than 200 Myr ago is required. As the time elapsed since
the last interaction with NGC 7715, based on dynamical studies,
is about 100 Myr, our result reinforces the suggestion
that this interaction might not have been the most important
event in the life of NGC 7714.
Key words: methods: statistical -
stars: formation - ISM: dust, extinction -
galaxies: individual: NGC 7714 -
galaxies: stellar content
In order to infer the history of the star formation rate (SFR),
one usually tries to match the spectral energy distribution (SED)
as closely as possible with model populations computed
with various scenarios for the SFR. The quality of the SED fit is
assessed either qualitatively by visual inspection or quantitatively,
e.g. by the -test or a more general expression of the likelihood.
Often, the SFR is represented by a number
of discrete values or by a predefined analytic form. This approach, which could
be called the direct or synthetic method, has been largely used in
the field of population synthesis (see Heavens et al. 2000; Reichardt et al. 2001 for efficient recent implementations).
Since one usually keeps the number of free parameters as small
as possible, the adopted functional forms for the SFR and age-metallicity
relation (AMR) impose certain limitations on what type of model
populations can be considered. Typically, these will be combinations
of instantaneous bursts and episodes of constant star formation.
Some inverse methods (Craig & Brown 1986; Tarantola &
Valette 1982a,b) deal with such a problem in an opposite way: one
tries to determine the functional form of e.g. the SFR with as much
freedom as possible, with a resolution in time
that is dictated by the information contained in the data.
Because of the latter property, these methods are called non-parametric.
This work presents a non-parametric inverse method to estimate characteristics of galaxy evolution such as the SFR, the AMR and the intrinsic dust extinction. As for all such approaches, the method is based on a probabilistic formulation of inverse problems (in our case the formalism of Tarantola & Valette 1982a,b). We apply the method in the framework of evolutionary population synthesis. In other words, possible solutions are only sought among those compatible with our current understanding of star formation and evolution: the relative fraction of stars of various masses is not arbitrary but follows an initial mass function, and theoretical evolutionary tracks combined with stellar spectral libraries determine the possible emission spectra of isochrone stellar populations. A probabilistic formulation for the alternative empirical population synthesis has been developed recently in the parametric case by Cid Fernandes et al. (2001). As noted by these authors, the exploration of solutions to an inversion problem can be tackled as a minimization problem or with an adequate sampling algorithm for the space of parameters. The second type of approach provides a complete description of the uncertainties on the estimated parameters, but may become difficult to implement in practice when some of the unknowns are non-parametric functions of time, which can take an immense variety of shapes. Here a minimization procedure is adopted. In addition, specific tools are used in order to estimate the validity of the inverse procedure, like the a posteriori covariance and resolution, and the mean index.
The nature of the available data determines many of the
capabilities and limitations of inversion procedures. Sets of equivalent
widths in the optical spectrum have been used
because these measurements are relatively easy to acquire (Pelat 1997;
Boisson et al. 2000). Cid Fernandes et al.
(2001) combined equivalent widths and colours in order also to constrain
dust extinction. However, they used a classical one
parameter description of extinction and reddening. The effects of
dust are rarely that simple (Witt & Gordon 2000). The
work we present here was partly motivated by previous
studies of starburst galaxy spectra, which not only made it clear
that average obscuration laws depend on the type
of galaxy observed (Calzetti et al. 1994), but also showed that
complex distributions of the stars and the dust in space
can lead to significant local deviations from this average. Lançon
et al. (2001) studied the 330 central parsecs of the
nuclear starburst galaxy NGC 7714, and emphasized the effects of
the different optical depths of dust along various lines of sight
within their small aperture. They demonstrated that in dusty
objects it is necessary to combine SEDs and emission lines
from the optical, the ultraviolet and the near-IR spectral ranges
if one aims at recovering the SFR over a wide range of ages and
useful information on the wavelength dependent attenuation by dust.
With those results in mind, we chose to apply the inversion method
to data sets such as those of Lançon et al. (2001): in this
paper, the empirical constraints are combined low resolution
SEDs in the three spectral ranges together with emission lines of H II.
Computation times were not prohibitive in the present case.
The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents our model
assumptions for the SEDs and reddening. Section 3
introduces the inverse method. After applying this technique to simulated
SEDs in Sect. 4, we give new
constraints on the SFR and the reddening law for the nuclear
starburst of NGC 7714 in Sect. 5.
The intrinsic SED of a synthetic stellar population depends on the following model ingredients:
![]() |
(1) |
With extinction:
The extinction in galaxies depends on two factors: the spatial
distribution of the dust and the properties of the dust grains,
which we describe with an opacity coefficient
.
In Sects. 2.2.1 and 2.2.2, we
adopt simple models which assume the knowledge of the dust distribution
and of
.
Opacity curves are
known to vary from one galaxy to the other, or even from
one line of sight to the other within the Milky Way.
For the foreground extinction due to our own Galaxy, we use
the opacity curve of Seaton (1979) at optical wavelengths,
and of Howarth (1983) in the UV and IR.
This curve is an average over many lines of sight towards Milky Way stars.
Due to the presence of graphite grains, it shows a characteristic feature
around 2200 Å.
Because the dust in many galaxies has an extinction curve that lacks
a 2200 Å bump, it has been argued that the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
opacity is more convenient for the modeling of galaxies' intrinsic extinction
(Gordon et al. 1997).
For the intrinsic extinction of our synthetic galaxies, we
adopt the SMC opacity curve of Prévot et al.
(1984) as listed by Gordon et al. (1997),
except where we explicitly allow it to vary.
In reality, the interstellar medium of a galaxy is not homogeneous, and is probably a mixture of different types of clouds (diffuse and compact) and different types of grains. Moreover, the light is scattered by the interstellar matter, so it is not possible to model the effective dust opacity in a simple way (e.g. Witt & Gordon 2000). This led Calzetti et al. (1994, 2000) to derive an obscuration curve empirically from the integrated spectra of a sample of diverse starburst galaxies (Sect. 2.2.3). In Sect. 2.2.4 we generalize this idea: it is suggested to use the inversion technique to recover both the wavelength dependence of the effective optical depth, and the time dependance of the SFR.
In this simplest model, one has:
![]() |
(4) |
In real galaxies, it is unlikely that all stars even of a given
age see the same distribution of dust. Various mixed gas+stars models
and clumpy gas distribution models have been considered in the
literature, to allow for this natural complexity. The model
considered here consists of dust clouds (or clumps)
distributed between the stars and the observer. The number of clumps on
the line of sight to a star of age t obeys Poisson statistics:
describes the average number of clumps along
the line of sight. With
this model, a fraction
of all stars
of age t are seen without any obscuration.
As demonstrated in Appendix A,
has
the following analytical expression for the clumpy model:
Note that when
,
becomes
indistinguishable from a dust screen with total optical depth
,
and when
the attenuation becomes independent
of wavelength. In the former case, the attenuated spectra contain information
on the product
but the two factors
cannot be separated; in the latter case, no signature of extinction
will appear in the spectrum (the dust would only be revealed by
infrared emission).
In the starburst extinction
models of Calzetti et al. (1994, 2000),
is an unknown which can be determined directly from observations assuming
that all galaxies in the samples have similar star formation
histories.
Again,
is written:
![]() |
(7) |
![]() |
(8) |
Inversion methods make it possible to explore whether
the available spectrophotometric data
contain enough information to recover both
the time dependence of the SFR and the
effective optical depth
.
Thus, we may consider the effective optical depth,
,
as an unknown. In this paper, we then restrict ourselves
to the assumption of a constant
in time.
In fact, the opacity information lies principally in the emission lines.
The differential optical depth between wavelengths and
is given by:
![]() |
(9) |
![]() |
(10) |
![]() |
(11) |
The determination of scalar functions (such as the SFR and the extinction law) from observational data is an underdetermined problem, because the amount of observational data is only finite and thus cannot provide the information for every detail of these functions. Application of a straight inversion technique to Eq. (3) could be very sensitive to the noise in the data, and could well give mathematically correct but unphysical results (Craig & Brown 1986). The problem must be regularized, which corresponds to a smoothing operation (Twomey 1977; Tikhonov & Arsénine 1976).
The inverse method we use comes from statistical techniques that have been applied in geophysical analyses (Tarantola & Valette 1982a,b; Tarantola & Nercessian 1984; Nercessian et al. 1984). The method resembles Bayesian approaches in that a priori ideas about the unknowns are used to regularize the inversion.
The conditional probability density
for the
vector M of the unknown parameters,
given the observed data D obeys:
![]() |
(12) |
The best estimate M minimizes the quantity:
![]() |
(17) |
![]() |
(18) |
The model parameters may include single value parameters as well
as functions (an example is described in detail in
Appendix B.2). For discrete parameters, C0 is the matrix of the a
priori variances and a priori covariances between the parameters.
Large values of the variances
must be chosen in the absence of any initial knowledge about the parameter
values. Otherwise, the second term of expression 14
prevents the algorithm from moving away from a meaningless prior.
Let us define a temporal variable u (
or u=t for instance;
see Appendix B.1).
For an unknown function such as
(i.e. the
star formation history of Eq. (2)),
defined at each time point,
C0 incorporates a functional operator
(see Eq. (B.7)). Given the limited number of
data, we must assume some regularizing properties for
.
Approximate internal errors on the
estimation of the parameters can be computed once the minimization
algorithm has converged. This is done by considering the local
behaviour of the posterior probability density distribution
around the best solution (see also
Reichardt et al. 2001; Moultaka & Pelat 2000). From a second-order
expansion of the posterior density distribution in this neighbourhood,
one obtains:
![]() |
(22) |
Suppose that we knew the true model
.
Then the observed
data would be (if the errors are negligible):
![]() |
(23) |
K := C0 G* S-1 G | (25) |
![]() |
(26) |
Another important and useful concept is a measure of the information
present in the data. This is closely linked to the resolving kernel.
Suppose that the parameter of interest is nearly constant
within the width of the kernel K. Then Eq. (24) gives
![]() |
(27) |
![]() |
(28) |
We have generated mock spectra from a given SFR (),
AMR (Z(t)), E(B-V) and average number of clouds (
)
in
order to test and illustrate the inverse procedure.
The spectra extend through parts of the UV [1180-1680 Å],
the optical [3690-6600 Å and 7000-9000 Å]
and the near-IR [2.06-2.39
m],
as appropriate for the subsequent analysis of NGC 7714 data
(see Sect. 5). The spectral resolution matches that of the
models, which are based on the library of stellar spectra of
Lejeune et al. (1998;
).
The IMF of Scalo (1998) is adopted.
The noise added to the input
spectra corresponds to a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) equal
respectively to 500 (Fig. 1)
and 25 (Fig. 2), and is assumed to be gaussian.
Iterations were stopped when
was stable to one part in 104 (typically 7 to 9 iterations).
The prior properties adopted for the figures are summarized
in Table 1.
The quality of the fits of the spectral energy distribution is evaluated
by means of a reduced
,
(the
of Eq. (19) divided by the number of data points).
The results are not affected much by the prior provided
that the reduced
and the mean index are close to 1.
Details of the implementation of the inversion method are provided
in Appendix B.2.
Dust clouds with individual E(B-V)=0.2 (Figs. 1 and 2) | |||
parameter | prior | prior ![]() |
prior ![]() |
![]() |
0 | 1 | 0.3-0.5 [log(t)] |
![]() |
1 | 1 | 0.3-0.5 [log(t)] |
E(B-V) | 0.5 | 0.25 | not applicable |
Z(t) | 0.014 | 0.001 | 0.5 [log(t)] |
Unknown effective optical depth (Fig. 3). | |||
parameter | prior | prior ![]() |
prior ![]() |
![]() |
0 | 0.5 | 0.7 [log(t)] |
![]() |
1 | 3 (
![]() |
1000 Å |
0.1 (
![]() |
Note:
is the natural logarithm of the
SFR expressed in
yr-1.
![]() |
Figure 1:
Inversion results from a spectrum with a signal-to-noise
ratio of 500. The left column focuses on the
the SFR, the middle column on the mean number of dust clouds
on the line of sight, and the right column on the AMR.
In the top panels, the solid lines describe the inputs used
to construct the mock spectrum. The dashed lines are
the best estimates from the noisy mock spectrum. The dot-dashed
lines, and the middle and bottom panels allow us to asses
the quality of the inversion. In the middle panels,
the response functions
![]() ![]() |
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In Fig. 1 the results obtained with S/N=500 are shown.
The input parameters are drawn in full lines in the top panels.
The input value of E(B-V) for individual clouds is 0.2.
The dashed lines show the best estimates of these parameters
resulting from the inversion. They led to a
of 1.028.
The dot-dashed lines show the
standard deviations from these best estimates, computed
from the diagonal terms of the posterior variance-covariance
matrix of Sect. 3.3.1. For E(B-V), the resulting
estimate is 0.194, and the posterior standard deviation
is 0.03.
The global features in the
SFR are recovered well, whereas the smallest
are not. The posterior resolution can be examined in the
middle panels. They display the
response of the inversion algorithm
to delta-function inputs in SFR(t),
and
Z(t), located at ages
,
7.7,
8.5 and 9.4. The computation is based
on the resolving kernel K of Sect. 3.3.2. It is seen
that the resolution compatible with the mock data
is about 0.3-0.6 in log(age). The mean index for the
SFR is uniformly close to 1 over the age range. Together
with the fact that the posterior standard deviation is
much smaller than the prior value, this tells us
the SFR is well constrained.
The average number of clumps and the AMR are not resolved as well as
the SFR. The reddening of individual clouds, E(B-V), has
been recovered well. Note that its value is compatible with the
recovery of
(see end of Sect. 2.2.1).
If E(B-V) had been found close to 0 a degeneracy
with
would have been suspected; if it had been very large
both its own value and
would have been very uncertain.
Despite the high signal to noise ratio, the mean index associated with the AMR begins to weaken. Note that the smallest values of the mean index tend to appear at ages where the star formation rate is low: it is not surprising that little information on the metallicity of the corresponding stars can be found in the data.
![]() |
Figure 2: Same as previous figure from a mock spectrum with a signal-to-noise ratio equal to 25. |
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Figure 2 shows how much information can be recovered when
the available data has S/N=25. Only the global trends are recovered
for the SFR and the average number of clumps. For the AMR, the
resolution and the mean index fall down after
(10 Myr):
the recovered AMR corresponds to the prior. Searching for the
AMR should be avoided with this type of data.
In Fig. 3, we test how well the method is able to reconstruct
the SFR and the effective optical depth
from simulated spectra with S/N=25 (see Appendix B.3).
Here, we do not consider the AMR
as an unknown, because at this level of noise
and spectral resolution, the information present in the
data is too poor. As
mentioned in Sect. 2.2.4, we assume
is the same for populations of all ages. The three
top panels show respectively the SFR, the resolution in age and the
SFR mean index as in previous figures. Only a large smoothing
length
gives a decent mean index: the age resolution
on the SFR is poor.
![]() |
Figure 3: Inversion results from a spectrum with a S/N = 25, when the wavelength dependence of the effective optical depth is also considered as an unknown. Metallicity is assumed to be known. The first three panels correspond to the first column of Figs. 1 and 2. The bottom panel shows the assumed optical depth (full line), the recovered one (dashed line) and the internal error (dot-dashed). |
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The input and output effective
optical depths are presented in the bottom panel.
The mean index for
takes values close
to 1 in the UV, then drops progressively to poor values,
of order 0.5 at 1
m and 0.1 around 2
m. The low index
values at long wavelengths are due essentially to the
degeneracy between the absolute values of the
effective obscuration and of the SFR (see Sect. 2.2.4):
with a small prior standard deviation, the prior sets
the result (with larger prior standard deviations, the algorithm
doesn't converge).
In Fig. 3 we have forced the near-IR match of
,
so input and output SFRs are comparable.
As the UV emission can only come from young stars,
the UV slope provides a strong
constraint on that part of the reddening law. The emission
of the young component at longer wavelengths does not by
itself match the data. The optical and near-IR fluxes
directly provide a minimum contribution of older stars and
the main constraints on their age distribution.
Freedom in the extinction law acts as a correction to improve the fit.
A relatively long prior correlation length for
(1000 Å) avoids excessive freedom, that would lead to the fitting
of the noise in the data.
In view of the limited resolution, spectral coverage and signal-to-noise ratio assumed here, the results of Fig. 3 are very satisfactory and the method is promising.
NGC 7714 is a well studied interacting spiral galaxy which hosts a starburst in
its nucleus (Arp 1966, Weedman et al. 1981; Calzetti 1997).
The peaked ground based morphology of the starburst, the
small inclination of the galaxy disk seen from our perspective,
and the relatively low extinction suggested by the ultraviolet (UV)
brightness (Markarian & Lipovetskij 1974),
motivated detailed studies of this apparently simple system.
As a result of high resolution imaging and
spectroscopy, the simplest models for the nucleus
had to be successively excluded (González-Delgado et al. 1995, 1999,
and references therein). The central 330 pc of the
galaxy were found to contain a variety of stellar populations, ranging
from very young (
5 Myr) to old (the population of the
underlying spiral). Simple dust screen extinction models, that were
initially compatible with the scarce available data (Puxley & Brand 1994),
were found to be inappropriate (Lançon et al. 2001, hereafter
LGLG01).
The study of the central 330 pc of the galaxy by LGLG01
was based on a "manual'' exploration of a set of model star formation
histories. The SFR was assumed to be a combination of a maximum of four
components, each component being represented either by a standard spiral
galaxy SFR, an instantaneous burst, an episode of constant star formation
or an exponentially decreasing star formation episode. The exploration
of this parameter space was guided by preliminary studies in individual
wavelength ranges. Such an exploration method is tedious and cannot
be exhaustive. A chance remains that the best fitting model may be missed.
On the other hand, this exploration has provided a range of constraints
that are considered robust because they are common to most of the
satisfactory model adjustments to the data.
Among those were the following.
(i) The nucleus of NGC 7714 has been forming stars
off and on over the past several hundred millions of years at an average
rate of the order of 1 yr-1, with a brief enhancement
of a factor of a few about 5 Myr ago.
(ii) The extinction even in the central 300 pc of NGC 7714 is
inhomogeneous; for instance, most of the UV luminosity of this area is
due to an obscuration-free line of sight towards a young cluster
which does not coincide with the maximum Brackett
(Br
)
emission.
(iii) Assuming a constant IMF in time, the recent star formation episodes have enhanced the stellar mass in the central area by at least 10%, and more likely by 25%.
(iv) Most of the satisfactory models implied that the level of star formation had increased already several 100 Myr ago. This timescale called for confirmation, as dynamical modeling of the interacting system indicates that only about 100 Myr have elapsed since closest approach between NGC 7714 and NGC 7715 (Smith & Wallin 1992; Smith et al. 1997; Struck & Smith 2002).
The existence of multiwavelength data and previous detailed investigations of plausible models for the central regions of NGC 7714 make this galaxy a target of choice for the application of our automatic inversion method. The available data are described in detail in LGLG01. The spectral coverage is as in Sect. 4. We have degraded the resolution of the observations to match the wavelength sampling of the models. A correction for foreground extinction due to the Milky Way was also applied ( E(B-V)=0.08). The signal-to-noise ratio varies along the spectrum with a typical value of 25. The gap in the optical part of the spectrum is due to the removal of data of poorer quality (due to telluric absorption).
In this section, we apply the three extinction models presented previously in Sect. 2.2: a screen of SMC-type dust, clouds of SMC-type dust, and the empirical attenuation law of Calzetti et al. (2000). The priors are listed in Table 2 and discussed in Sect. 5.2.
Inversions of Sect. 5.1, 5.4 and 5.5. | |||
parameter | prior | prior ![]() |
prior ![]() |
![]() |
-1.2 | 0.4 | 0.5 [log(t)] |
SMC or Calzetti-type dust screen: | |||
E(B-V)(t) | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.5 [log(t)] |
Dust clouds: | |||
![]() |
2 | 2 | 0.5 [log(t)] |
![]() |
0.2 | 0.2 | none |
Inversions of Sect. 5.6. | |||
parameter | prior | prior ![]() |
prior ![]() |
![]() |
-1.2 | 0.8 | 0.6 [log(t)] |
ln
![]() |
0 (
![]() |
1.5 (
![]() |
3000 Å |
-2 (
![]() |
0.1 (
![]() |
Note:
is the natural logarithm of the
SFR expressed in
yr-1.
model | Scalo IMF | Salpeter IMF |
dust screen | 2.5 | 2.3 |
dust clouds | 2.3 | 2.0 |
Calzetti | 2.1 | 1.9 |
![]() |
Figure 4: Properties obtained for the nucleus of NGC 7714, assuming a Salpeter IMF and solar metallicity (Z=0.02). The top panel shows the star formation histories. The middle panel shows the differential extinction and the bottom panel the cumulative contributions of stars of various ages to the total stellar mass. Solid: Calzetti dust (the errors given by the posterior standard deviation are indicated with dotted lines in the top panel); dot-dashed: dust screen; dashed: dust clouds. |
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The main results are plotted in Fig. 4.
The derived star formation histories and extinctions are in
good global agreement with the previous study of LGLG01.
A bimodal SFR is found, with two peaks respectively
centered at log(age)=6.4 (2.5 Myr) and 8.5 (300 Myr).
The average level of the SFR over the last few 108 yr
is of the order of 1 yr-1.
Stars younger than 109 yr contribute about
20% of the total stellar mass that has ever been produced.
The most recent episode of activity however, despite its high star formation
rate, only added a few percent to the stellar mass.
The posterior standard deviation and mean index shows that the SFR is well constrained, except around log(age)=7.5. The stars at these ages contribute little to the light, compared to the youngest burst in the UV, or to the bulk of the somewhat older intermediate age stars at optical wavelengths. The amount of obscuration is constrained tightly for the youngest stars, and reasonably well for the oldest, but the mean index is poor at intermediate ages.
In the case of the cloudy dust model,
and the
reddening per cloud are searched for.
is found for the
individual clouds (with a posterior standard deviation of 0.03).
varies between 1 and 2 at young and intermediate ages,
and increases to about 6 for the old populations.
and
are combined using
Eqs. (5) and (6)
to provide the final colour excess plotted in Fig. 4.
Note that this value is systematically smaller than the simple
product
.
![]() |
Figure 5: Adjustment of the NGC 7714 data obtained with the dust description of Calzetti. Thick line: data (Gaussian fits to the emission lines have been subtracted before resampling). Thin solid line: model SED (interpolated through regions with no data). Also shown are the respective contributions of stars in the following age ranges: < 107 yr (dotted), 107-109 yr (dashed), >109 yr (dot-dashed). |
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The dependence of the colour excess on stellar age is consistent with the results of LGLG01. Relatively large values are found at old ages. This trend is necessary in order to reach the near-IR flux level without compromising the fit at optical wavelengths (Fig. 5; see however Sect. 5.2).
In the UV, the SMC opacity curve is the steepest of the reddening laws we have considered. With that law, the blue slope of the UV emission of NGC 7714 sets the strongest limitation on the amount of dust towards young stars. Consequently, a smaller SFR is sufficient to produce the observed level of UV flux. The shape of the opacity curves also explains the differences at old ages: the different E(B-V)of Fig. 4 produce old components of very similar shape and contributions in plots such as Fig. 5.
The reduced
values in Table 3
show that the effect of the IMF on the quality of the
best fits is small, the Salpeter IMF being favoured.
The clumpy dust model and the attenuation law of Calzetti et al.
produce a slightly better agreement with the observed SED than a
simple SMC dust screen.
An important caveat for all the results of this section
is that the Br
emission line is
underestimated by a factor of two by the models,
and this even though we do not apply stronger
extinction to the emission lines than to the stellar
continua (i.e. we deviate from the prescription of Calzetti et al.
2000 in this point).
The missing Br
emission corresponds to a nebular emission excited
by a young population that is not found by the inversion
algorithm when the wavelength dependence of the extinction
is one of the laws considered here. The young population is likely
to be underestimated. We note that the same problem
was faced by LGLG01 when they sought to adjust only the continuum,
and led them to invoke additional highly obscured young stars.
A similar ad hoc fix would also be successful here.
As a partial answer to the lack of Br
photons,
the age found by automated inversion for the most recent starburst
is younger than the 5 Myr of LGLG01.
Increasing the prior standard deviations or reducing the correlation lengths significantly from the values in the table results either in loss of convergence, or in unacceptably small values of the mean indices, or in large posterior variances: the information in the data becomes insufficient.
![]() |
Figure 6:
Effects of the prior assumptions on the estimated parameters,
in the case of Calzetti-type dust.
The thick lines are the results of Fig. 4.
The thin solid line is the result of double iteration (see text).
The two other lines are obtained with priors designed to pull
the SFR towards low (dot-dashed) and high (dotted) values at intermediate
ages (i.e. where the mean index of E(B-V) is low).
The values of
![]() |
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As it is, the mean index of the extinction is low at intermediate ages. Nevertheless, the results are found to be quite stable against changes in the priors. In Fig. 6, extreme results are plotted in the illustrative case of Calzetti-type dust. They were obtained by modifying the initial guesses of both the SFR and the extinction in order to pull towards higher or lower resulting SFRs. The shape of the SFR appears to be robust, although the mass ratio of old to relatively young stars (which is sensitive to small changes in the actual value of the early SFR) appears to be uncertain to within a factor of two.
Also plotted in Fig. 6 is the result obtained when the outputs of Sect. 5.1 are used as priors for a new iteration. This step provides a good test of the initial convergence. The changes are satisfactorily small. After successfully performing the test in several cases, we have stopped applying it systematically.
Finally, we have neglected until now the uncertainties
due to possible aperture mismatch between the UV, optical
and near-IR observations. LGLG01 estimate that errors in the
relative flux levels of the three spectral segments are below 15%.
Although it is possible to build
this uncertainty directly into the inversion algorithm,
we have more conservatively run inversions on a series
of modified data. Factors between 0.85 and 1.15 were applied
to the UV and near-IR parts of the spectrum. The resulting
fits are poor (
)
when the near-IR flux is increased
above the reference value. The best fits (
)
are obtained
with a reduced near-IR flux. These solutions are appealing
because they don't require higher extinctions for the old populations
than for the intermediate age ones. The earliest star formation rates
are correspondingly smaller, and the intermediate age and young populations
becomes more important in terms of total stellar mass.
However, all the tests run here provide results within the global
envelope of the results already discussed above or in the previous
section.
None of our attempts have a provided a solution in which the increase in the SFR responsible for the large intermediate age population occured less than about 300 Myr ago.
Struck & Smith (2002) discuss possible causes for a star formation episode that would have started 300 Myr or longer ago, but favour none in particular. The strength and extent of the stellar ring of NGC 7714 and of the tidal tails of the system suggest that the galaxies are observed shortly after closest approach and well before their probable merger (Toomre & Toomre 1972; Barnes & Hernquist 1992; Gerber & Lamb 1994). What "shortly after'' precisely means remains dependent on the model. Struck & Smith (2002) caution that modest changes of orbital inclination or distance of closest approach can significantly change the structure of the disk waves, and thus the central SFR in NGC 7714. At the same time, they admit a variety of imperfections in their final choices (for instance, they attribute the lack of a strong stellar ring in their hydrodynamical simulation to a slightly overestimated impact parameter). Furthermore, the timescale of the formation and disruption of tidal features depends on impact speed (Dubinski et al. 1999). Although the choice of initially parabolic galaxy orbits made by Struck & Smith is reasonable, the previous histories of the galaxies, or galaxy halo structures different from those adopted may have led to a slower encounter with longer timescales.
Various dynamical or hydrodynamical simulations of mergers produce double star formation episodes over timescales of the order of 109 yr, but the second one usually corresponds to the final merger, which is not appropriate for our case study (Mihos & Hernquist 1994; Bekki 1998; Gerritsen & Icke 1999). However, some models predict that each of these SF episodes, especially the first one, will last for several 100 Myr (Bekki 1998). If these models incorporated feedback mechanisms associated with star formation, such as local heating of the ISM that partially prevents star formation, the predicted SFR would be much more irregular (Gerritsen & Icke 1999) and might describe what happened in NGC 7714.
From the simulations available in the literature, our conclusion is that the last interaction with NGC 7715 might explain SF timescales of up to about 200 Myr, while longer SF timescales call for a previous event. A previous passage of the companion galaxy and related (or unrelated) bar instabilities, are options worth considering (Smith & Wallin 1992; Friedli & Benz 1995).
Section 5.1 considers a solar metallicity for NGC 7714. Here we investigate the effect of the assumed metallicity on the estimated SFR.
Figure 7 compares the SFRs obtained for Z=0.02 and Z=0.008. Due to the smaller opacities of metal poor stellar atmospheres, a stellar population of a given age is intrinsically bluer at Z=0.008 than at Z=0.02. To reproduce the spectrum with a given effective extinction law, a shift of the star formation episodes to somewhat larger ages is therefore required at Z=0.008. Even the oldest stars are not red enough to explain the near-IR flux, and enhanced reddening towards the old populations results. The resulting absorption is compensated with a higher early star formation rate, and the predominance of old stars in the mass budget is reinforced.
The larger width of the recent star formation episode compensates for the lower value of the maximum SFR, and the total amount of UV light produced is similar to the Z=0.02case.
![]() |
Figure 7: Determination of the NGC 7714 star formation rate for two different metallicities, assuming a Salpeter IMF and the attenuation law of Calzetti et al. (2000). Solid line: Z=0.02; dashed line: Z=0.008. The layout is as in Fig. 4. |
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Spectrophotometric properties of stellar populations with
complex star formation histories depend critically on the
properties of the building blocks of evolutionary models, the
so-called single stellar population models that define the
basis
.
In addition to the basis of the previous
sections, we constructed a second set using the new grid of
Mouhcine (2001) and Mouhcine & Lançon (2002). In this grid
particular care was taken to model the near-infrared
properties of intermediate age stellar populations.
The major difference relative to the inputs of P´EGASE
lies in the modeling of the Thermally
Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB). TP-AGB stars dominate
the near-infrared light of intermediate-age (0.1-2 Gyr)
stellar populations.
As a result of the interplay
between mass loss, the third dredge-up process and, most
importantly, envelope burning, the new models
predict that the TP-AGB stars with the longest lifetime
are born from stars with main sequence lifetimes of
0.8-1 Gyr rather than 0.1-0.2 Gyr (see also Girardi & Bertelli 1998;
Marigo 1998). Consequently, the new integrated spectra evolve
from bluer to redder colours between 0.1 and 1 Gyr rather than the opposite,
in better agreement with constraints from the clusters of the Magellanic
Clouds. One motivation for using the new models was to test whether
they would allow for a more recent onset of the intermediate age
star formation episode.
![]() |
Figure 8: Same as Fig. 4, but with the stellar populations of Mouhcine & Lançon (2002). Solid: Calzetti-type dust; dot-dashed: SMC dust screen; dashed: dust clouds. |
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Figure 8 is the equivalent of Fig. 4, for the new basis of single population spectra. The results are not significantly different. The intermediate age star formation episode starts early again. In the nucleus of NGC 7714, because of the large contribution of the old stars of the underlying spiral bulge, there is no need to invoke the reddest AGB-dominated populations that would differentiate between the two sets of basis spectra.
The
values of the previous models are of about 2,
meaning that better models can be sought for.
Moreover, the adjustment of the emission lines showed a specific problem:
Br
is systematically underestimated by a factor of two.
So, a possibility is that the extinction laws we have used do
not correspond to reality.
In this section, we derive a new extinction law, compatible
with the data, emission lines included.
More precisely, the model is written as follows:
![]() |
(29) |
![]() |
(30) |
![]() |
Figure 9: Simultaneous determination of the star formation rate (top panel) and of the optical depth (middle panel, full line) for the central 300 pc of NGC 7714. We have superimposed the Calzetti law, rescaled to E(B-V)=0.3 (dashed line). The bottom panel shows the cumulative mass contribution of the stars. |
Open with DEXTER |
The SFR obtained here and shown in the top
panel of Fig. 9
provides a good fit to the data (
;
Fig. 10).
The hydrogen lines are reproduced to within 10%.
The mean index for the SFR is remarkably similar to
the curves plotted in Figs. 4 or 8.
The mean index for
behaves as
described and explained in Sect. 4.
The plotted attenuation law is derived to within an
additive constant, which corresponds to multiplicative
factor on the SFR. A minimum
level of the SFR is set by the constraint of positive extinction
at all wavelengths. If extinction were nil in the
near-IR, the SFR would be reduced by only
,
i.e. about 10% as compared to the plotted curve.
Much larger values of
and the SFR can be excluded when considering
the far-IR emission of the galaxy, a constraint that we have
not incorporated in the inversion procedure. LGLG01 verified that,
with 4 times as many hot stars as directly derived from the UV flux
with standard extinction laws, the nuclear
330 pc would
already produce over a third of the total far-IR light of the galaxy.
This factor of 4 is already present in the
SFR of Fig. 9.
![]() |
Figure 10: Adjustment of the spectrum of the nucleus of NGC 7714, with the SFR and attenuation obtained in Sect. 5.6. The line types are as in Fig. 5. |
Open with DEXTER |
Interstingly, the wavelength dependence of the derived attenuation is
close to the empirical law of Calzetti et al. (2000).
The differences, however, are significant: in the UV, the
estimated law is flatter (otherwise
the blue slope of the observed UV continuum could not
be reproduced with this amount of attenuation).
The present results mimic what imaging suggests
is the real situation in the central 300 pc of
NGC 7714 (LGLG01): a significant fraction of the
UV-emitting stars are heavily attenuated in the UV,
and contribute mainly to Br,
while a smaller
fraction of these hot stars is practically unobscured,
explaining the small apparent reddening at UV wavelengths.
The SFR found here exceeds 1 yr-1 only
in the last 20 Myr. This timescale is consistent with the dynamical
models of Struck & Smith (2002). Nevertheless, there is an
enhancement in the SFR about
yr ago (from about 0.1
to about 0.5
yr-1).
Despite the appeal of this solution, we express
some caution. First, the fit of Fig. 10
shows the stars with ages below 107 yr as the
strongest contributors around the Balmer jump. The fit
in this region is good because of a bump in the
obscuration law at the appropriate place. There is no physical
reason to expect such a bump. At higher spectral resolution,
the shape of Balmer line wings would be able to confirm the need for
a stronger contribution of intermediate age stars (LGLG01).
Second, we have made the strong assumption here
that a single empirical attenuation law applies to stellar populations
of all ages. The solutions of LGLG01,
based on the integrated spectrum and direct
constraints from high resolution imaging,
assigned populations of different ages different apparent obscurations.
In a way, we have traded freedom in the wavelength dependence of
against freedom in its time dependence.
Unfortunately, considering the quasi-infinite
possible combinations of dust properties and dust distributions in a
starburst, we doubt that any spatially integrated spectroscopic data
will be able to fully break the degeneracies and make multiwavelength
images redundant.
In this paper we have presented an inversion method designed to estimate the SFR, the AMR and the reddening properties of galaxies from their spectra. This method allows us not only to derive best values for these functional parameters, but also to estimate the amount of information actually present in the data for each of the unknowns, as well as the posterior resolution in time, depending on the S/N of the studied spectra.
The main conclusions based on the inversion of simulated spectra are:
The main results obtained for NGC 7714 can be compared to the previous results from non-automated studies (LGLG01):
Acknowledgements
We thank an anonymous referee for a careful reading and for requests that significantly improved the paper.
We assume here that the clouds are of a typical size
independent of age, so that the column density per cloud
is constant.
In other words, we assume that the variation of the
extinction in time depends only on the density of clouds.
The probability to find i clouds in a given direction will follow
a Poisson law:
![]() |
(A.1) |
![]() |
(A.2) |
![]() |
|||
(A.3) |
![]() |
(A.4) |
![]() |
(B.1) |
![]() |
(B.2) |
So, the prior variance-covariance operators defined below (
,
CZ,... etc.) are expressed with the new variable u. For instance,
is written as:
![]() |
(B.3) |
In this section, we clarify the main steps of the inversion
procedure, in the case one wishes to derive the time
dependence of ,
Z and
,
and the
value of E(B-V) (the extinction per cloud on the line
of sight).
Since the star formation rate is always positive, changing over from
to
in Eq. (3) yields:
![]() |
(B.4) |
The flux at the wavelength
is modeled as follows:
![]() ![]() |
|
![]() |
|
=![]() |
(B.5) |
The vector M of unknown parameters is:
![]() |
(B.6) |
The matrix of partial derivatives is (with s the number of
wavelengths sampled):
![]() |
(B.8) |
![]() |
|
![]() |
(B.9) |
![]() | |||
![]() |
(B.10) |
![]() | |||
![]() |
(B.11) |
![]() | |||
![]() |
(B.12) |
The ith component of the vector
(in Eq. (16)) is:
2pt
Vi=![]() |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
|
![]() |
(B.14) |
where ,
Z0,
and E(B-V)0
are respectively the priors
of
,
Z(u),
and E(B-V).
The (i,j)th component of
is:
Defining the vector:
![]() |
|||
(B.17) | |||
![]() |
|||
(B.18) | |||
![]() |
|||
(B.19) |
![]() |
(B.20) |
![]() ![]() |
|
=![]() |
(B.21) |
![]() |
(B.22) |
![]() |
(B.23) |
![]() |
(B.24) |
The matrix of partial derivatives of Eq. (16) is:
![]() |
(B.25) |
K1(u)=![]() |
(B.26) |
![]() ![]() |
(B.27) |
The ith component of the vector
is:
![]() |
(B.28) |
![]() |
(B.29) |
![]() |
(B.30) |
![]() |
(B.31) |