The MOSFIRE Deep Evolution Field Survey: Implications of the Lack of Evolution in the Dust Attenuation–Mass Relation to z ∼ 2*
Alice E. Shapley, Ryan L. Sanders, Samir Salim, Naveen A. Reddy, Mariska Kriek, Bahram Mobasher, Alison L. Coil, Brian Siana, Sedona H. Price, Irene Shivaei, James S. Dunlop, Ross J. McLure, Fergus Cullen
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Source: Crossref
Published: Feb 1, 2022
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac4742
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Abstract We investigate the relationship between dust attenuation and stellar mass ( M * ) in star-forming galaxies over cosmic time. For this analysis, we compare measurements from the MOSFIRE Deep Evolution Field survey at z ∼ 2.3 and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) at z ∼ 0, augmenting the latter optical data set with both UV Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and mid-infrared Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) photometry from the GALEX-SDSS-WISE Catalog. We quantify dust attenuation using both spectroscopic measurements of H α and H β emission lines, and photometric measurements of the rest-UV stellar continuum. The H α /H β ratio is used to determine the magnitude of attenuation at the wavelength of H α , A H α . Rest-UV colors and spectral energy distribution fitting are used to estimate A 1600 , the magnitude of attenuation at a rest wavelength of 1600 Å. As in previous work, we find a lack of significant evolution in the relation between dust attenuation and M * over the redshift range z ∼ 0 to z ∼ 2.3. Folding in the latest estimates of the evolution of M dust , ( M dust / M gas ), and gas surface density at fixed M * , we find that the expected M dust and dust mass surface density are both significantly higher at z ∼ 2.3 than at z ∼ 0. These differences appear at odds with the lack of evolution in dust attenuation. To explain the striking constancy in attenuation versus M * , it is essential to determine the relationship between metallicity and ( M dust / M gas ), the dust mass absorption coefficient and dust geometry, and the evolution of these relations and quantities from z ∼ 0 to z ∼ 2.3.
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