Spitzer and Herschel-based SEDs of 24um-bright z~0.3-3.0 starbursts and obscured quasars

TL;DR

This study analyzes the infrared spectral energy distributions of mid-IR selected galaxies at z~0.3-3.0, revealing significant evolution and diversity in their properties compared to local galaxies, with implications for understanding galaxy evolution.

Contribution

It provides a large, spectrally-covered sample of high-z IR galaxies with Herschel data, deriving new SED templates and highlighting evolutionary differences from local counterparts.

Findings

High-z starbursts resemble local LIRGs more than ULIRGs.

Obscured AGN show strong silicate absorption, indicating high obscuration.

Wide SED diversity among high-z IR-luminous galaxies.

Abstract

In this paper, we characterize the infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of mid-IR selected z~0.3-3.0 and L_IR~10^11-10^13Lsun galaxies, and study how their SEDs differ from those of local and high-z analogs. Our mid-IR flux-limited sample of 191 sources is unique in size, and spectral coverage, including Spitzer mid-IR spectroscopy. Here we add Herschel photometry at 250um, 350um, and 500um, which allows us to obtain accurate total IR luminosities, as well as constrain the relative contributions of AGN and starbursts to those luminosities. Our sample constitutes ~23% AGN (i.e. where the AGN contributes >50% of L_IR), ~30% starbursts (where AGN contributes <20% of L_IR and the mid-IR spectra are starburst-like); and ~47% composites (which show both significant AGN and starburst activity). The AGN-dominated sources divide into ones that show a strong silicate 9.7um absorption feature, implying highly obscured systems, and ones that do not. The high-tau_9.7 sources are half of our z>1.2 AGN, but show SEDs that are extremely rare among local AGN. The SEDs of our z~2 starburst-dominated ULIRGs are much closer to those of local LIRGs than ULIRGs. This is consistent with our earlier finding that, unlike local ULIRGs, our high-z starbursts are typically only in the early stages of a merger. The SEDs of the composite sources are most similar to the local archetypal warm ULIRG, Mrk231. In summary, our results show that there is strong evolution in the SEDs between local and z~2 IR-luminous galaxies, as well as that there is a wide range of SEDs among high redshift IR-luminous sources. The publicly-available SED templates we derive from our sample will be particularly useful for infrared population synthesis models, as well as in the interpretation of other mid-IR high-z galaxies in particular those detected by the recent all sky WISE survey.