The local FIR Galaxy Colour-Luminosity distribution: A reference for BLAST, and Herschel/SPIRE sub-mm surveys

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the local galaxy FIR colour-luminosity distribution using IRAS data, providing a crucial reference for interpreting and modeling high-redshift sub-mm galaxy surveys by BLAST and Herschel/SPIRE.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive local FIR colour-luminosity distribution corrected for biases, serving as a baseline for high-redshift galaxy evolution studies in sub-mm surveys.

Findings

Distribution consistent with local FIR luminosity function

Evidence for pure luminosity evolution (1+z)^3

Provides statistical dust temperature distribution for galaxies

Abstract

We measure the local galaxy far-infrared (FIR) 60-to-100 um colour-luminosity distribution using an all-sky IRAS survey. This distribution is an important reference for the next generation of FIR--submillimetre surveys that have and will conduct deep extra-galactic surveys at 250--500 um. With the peak in dust-obscured star-forming activity leading to present-day giant ellipticals now believed to occur in sub-mm galaxies near z~2.5, these new FIR--submillimetre surveys will directly sample the SEDs of these distant objects at rest-frame FIR wavelengths similar to those at which local galaxies were observed by IRAS. We have taken care to correct for temperature bias and evolution effects in our IRAS 60 um-selected sample. We verify that our colour-luminosity distribution is consistent with measurements of the local FIR luminosity function, before applying it to the higher-redshift Universe. We compare our colour-luminosity correlation with recent dust-temperature measurements of sub-mm galaxies and find evidence for pure luminosity evolution of the form (1+z)^3. This distribution will be useful for the development of evolutionary models for BLAST and SPIRE surveys as it provides a statistical distribution of rest-frame dust temperatures for galaxies as a function of luminosity.