Browsing by Author "Maddox, S. J."

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    Herschel-ATLAS: correlations between dust and gas in local submm-selected galaxies
    (2013) Bourne, N.; Dunne, L.; Bendo, G. J.; Smith, M. W. L.; Clark, C. J. R.; Smith, D. J. B.; Rigby, E. E.; Baes, M.; Leeuw, L. L.; Maddox, S. J.; Thompson, M. A.; Bremer, M. N.; Cooray, A.; Dariush, A.; de Zotti, G.; Dye, S.; Eales, S.; Hopwood, R.; Ibar, E.; Ivison, R. J.; Jarvis, M. J.; Michalowski, M. J.; Rowlands, K.; Valiante, E.
    We present an analysis of CO molecular gas tracers in a sample of 500 mu m-selected Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) galaxies at z < 0.05 (cz < 14990 km s(-1)). Using 22-500 mu m photometry from Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, Infrared Astronomical Satellite and Herschel, with HI data from the literature, we investigate correlations between warm and cold dust, and tracers of the gas in different phases. The correlation between global CO(3-2) line fluxes and far-infrared (FIR)-submillimetre (submm) fluxes weakens with increasing infrared wavelength (lambda greater than or similar to 60 mu m), as a result of colder dust being less strongly associated with dense gas. Conversely, CO(2-1) and HI line fluxes both appear to be better correlated with longer wavelengths, suggesting that cold dust is more strongly associated with diffuse atomic and molecular gas phases, consistent with it being at least partially heated by radiation from old stellar populations. The increased scatter at long wavelengths implies that submm fluxes are a poorer tracer of star formation rate (SFR). Fluxes at 22 and 60 mu m are also better correlated with diffuse gas tracers than dense CO(3-2), probably due to very small grain emission in the diffuse interstellar medium, which is not correlated with SFR. The FIR/CO luminosity ratio and the dust mass/CO luminosity ratio both decrease with increasing luminosity, as a result of either correlations between mass and metallicity (changing CO/H-2) or between CO luminosity and excitation [changing CO(3-2)/CO(1-0)].
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    Isothermal dust models of Herschel-ATLAS☆ galaxies
    (2013) Smith, D. J. B.; Hardcastle, M. J.; Jarvis, M. J.; Maddox, S. J.; Dunne, L.; Bonfield, D. G.; Eales, S.; Serjeant, S.; Thompson, M. A.; Baes, M.; Clements, D. L.; Cooray, A.; De Zotti, G.; Gonzalez-Nuevo, J.; van der Werf, P.; Virdee, J.; Bourne, N.; Dariush, A.; Hopwood, R.; Ibar, E.; Valiante, E.
    We use galaxies from the Herschel-ATLAS (H-ATLAS) survey, and a suite of ancillary simulations based on an isothermal dust model, to study our ability to determine the effective dust temperature, luminosity and emissivity index of 250 mu m selected galaxies in the local Universe (z < 0.5). As well as simple far-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting of individual galaxies based on chi(2) minimization, we attempt to derive the best global isothermal properties of 13 826 galaxies with reliable optical counterparts and spectroscopic redshifts. Using our simulations, we highlight the fact that applying traditional SED fitting techniques to noisy observational data in the Herschel Space Observatory bands introduces artificial anti-correlation between derived values of dust temperature and emissivity index. This is true even for galaxies with the most robust statistical detections in our sample, making the results of such fitting difficult to interpret. We apply a method to determine the best-fitting global values of isothermal effective temperature and emissivity index for z < 0.5 galaxies in H-ATLAS, deriving T-eff = 22.3 +/- 0.1 K and beta = 1.98 +/- 0.02 (or T-eff = 23.5 +/- 0.1 K and beta = 1.82 +/- 0.02 if we attempt to correct for bias by assuming that T-eff and beta(eff) are independent and normally distributed). We use our technique to test for an evolving emissivity index, finding only weak evidence. The median dust luminosity of our sample is log(10)(L-dust/L-circle dot) = 10.72 +/- 0.05, which (unlike T-eff) shows little dependence on the choice of beta used in our analysis, including whether it is variable or fixed. In addition, we use a further suite of simulations based on a fixed emissivity index isothermal model to emphasize the importance of the H-ATLAS PACS data for deriving dust temperatures at these redshifts, even though they are considerably less sensitive than the SPIRE data. Finally, we show that the majority of galaxies detected by H-ATLAS are normal star-forming galaxies, though with a substantial minority (similar to 31 per cent) falling in the Luminous Infrared Galaxy category.