The local star formation rate and radio luminosity density

Serjeant, Stephen; Gruppioni, Carlotta and Oliver, Seb (2002). The local star formation rate and radio luminosity density. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 330(3) pp. 621–624.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05109.x

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9808259

Abstract

We present a new determination of the local volume-averaged star formation rate from the 1.4-GHz luminosity function of star forming galaxies. Our sample, taken from the Revised Shapley-Ames catalogue (231 normal spiral galaxies over an effective area of 7.1sr) has ~=100 per cent complete radio detections and is insensitive to dust obscuration and cirrus contamination. After removal of known active galaxies, the best-fitting Schechter function has a faint-end slope of in agreement with the local Halpha luminosity function, characteristic luminosity and density The inferred local radio luminosity density of (Poisson noise, large-scale structure fluctuations) implies a volume-averaged star formation rate ~2 times larger than the Gallego et al. Halpha estimate, i.e. for a Salpeter initial mass function from and Hubble constant of 50kms-1 Mpc-1 . We demonstrate that the Balmer decrement is a highly unreliable extinction estimator, and argue that optical-ultraviolet (UV) star formation rates (SFRs) are easily underestimated, particularly at high redshift.

Viewing alternatives

Look up in Google Scholar

Metrics

Public Attention

Altmetrics from Altmetric

Number of Citations

Citations from Dimensions
No digital document available to download for this item

Item Actions

Export

About

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

Recommendations