51. Evolution of cosmic star formation in the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey
- Author
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Bourne, N., Dunlop, J. S., Merlin, E., Parsa, S., Schreiber, C., Castellano, M., Conselice, C. J., Coppin, K. E. K., Farrah, D., Fontana, A., Geach, J. E., Halpern, M., Knudsen, K. K., Michalowski, M. J., Mortlock, A., Santini, P., Scott, D., Shu, X. W., Simpson, C., Simpson, J. M., Smith, D. J. B., and van der Werf, P.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics - Abstract
We present a new exploration of the cosmic star-formation history and dust obscuration in massive galaxies at redshifts $0.5< z<6$. We utilize the deepest 450 and 850$\mu$m imaging from SCUBA-2 CLS, covering 230arcmin$^2$ in the AEGIS, COSMOS and UDS fields, together with 100-250$\mu$m imaging from Herschel. We demonstrate the capability of the T-PHOT deconfusion code to reach below the confusion limit, using multi-wavelength prior catalogues from CANDELS/3D-HST. By combining IR and UV data, we measure the relationship between total star-formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass up to $z\sim5$, indicating that UV-derived dust corrections underestimate the SFR in massive galaxies. We investigate the relationship between obscuration and the UV slope (the IRX-$\beta$ relation) in our sample, which is similar to that of low-redshift starburst galaxies, although it deviates at high stellar masses. Our data provide new measurements of the total SFR density (SFRD) in $M_\ast>10^{10}M_\odot$ galaxies at $0.5
10$. One third of this is accounted for by 450$\mu$m-detected sources, while one fifth is attributed to UV-luminous sources (brighter than $L^\ast_{UV}$), although even these are largely obscured. By extrapolating our results to include all stellar masses, we estimate a total SFRD that is in good agreement with previous results from IR and UV data at $z\lesssim3$, and from UV-only data at $z\sim5$. The cosmic star-formation history undergoes a transition at $z\sim3-4$, as predominantly unobscured growth in the early Universe is overtaken by obscured star formation, driven by the build-up of the most massive galaxies during the peak of cosmic assembly., Comment: MNRAS Accepted 2017 January 5. 29 pages, 18 figures - Published
- 2016
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