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The importance of nebular emission for SED modeling of distant star-forming galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2012

Daniel Schaerer  and
Stephane de Barros
Daniel Schaerer
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland CNRS, IRAP, 14 Avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France email: daniel.schaerer@unige.ch
Stephane de Barros
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
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Abstract

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We highlight and discuss the importance of accounting for nebular emission in the SEDs of high redshift galaxies, as lines and continuum emission can contribute significantly or subtly to broad-band photometry. Physical parameters such as the galaxy age, mass, star-formation rate, dust attenuation and others inferred from SED fits can be affected to different extent by the treatment of nebular emission.

We analyse a large sample of Lyman break galaxies from z ~ 3–6, and show some main results illustrating e.g. the importance of nebular emission for determinations of the mass–SFR relation, attenuation and age. We suggest that a fairly large scatter in such relations could be intrinsic. We find that the majority of objects (~ 60–70%) is better fit with SEDs accounting for nebular emission; the remaining galaxies are found to show relatively weak or no emission lines. Our modeling, and supporting empirical evidence, suggests the existence of two categories of galaxies, “starbursts” and “post-starbursts” (lower SFR and older galaxies) among the LBG population, and relatively short star-formation timescales.

Keywords

galaxies: starburstgalaxies: high-redshiftgalaxies: evolutiongalaxies: formation
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 7 , Symposium S284: The Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxies , September 2011 , pp. 20 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2012

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