Constraints on Dusty Star Formation at High Redshift from Ultraviolet, Far-Infrared, and Radio Surveys

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  • 8 January 2000
Abstract
If high-redshift galaxies resemble rapidly star-forming galaxies in the local universe, most of the luminosity emitted by their massive stars will have been absorbed by dust and re-radiated at far-infrared wavelengths that are largely inaccessible to ground-based observations. The bolometric luminosity produced by star formation in distant galaxies must be estimated indirectly through empirical, locally established correlations between bolometric luminosity and fluxes at far-UV, mid-IR, sub-mm, and radio wavelengths. Data from the local universe, which we review and quantify, suggest that observations in each of these more accessible wave bands can constrain the bolometric luminosity of rapidly star-forming galaxies to within ~ 0.3 dex. We assemble the limited evidence that high-redshift galaxies obey these locally calibrated correlations. Observations of the far-UV, sub-mm, radio, and mid-IR fluxes of galaxies at 1<z<3 are largely consistent with the idea that the same correlations exist for star-forming galaxies at high redshift. We show that, if this is the case, then known UV-selected galaxy populations at 1<z<5 could by themselves account for the entire 850 micron background and the shape of the observed 850 micron number counts, provided they have the same distribution of dust opacities as inferred for the well studied Lyman-break galaxies at z~3. None of the available data at 850 microns appear to require a significant fraction of star formation in the universe to have occurred in galaxies so heavily obscured by dust that they could not be detected in UV-selected surveys.

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