Calibrating Star Formation in WISE using Total Infrared Luminosity

TL;DR

This paper calibrates WISE infrared bands as reliable indicators of star formation rates in galaxies, providing tools for large-scale galaxy surveys with minimal dust extinction uncertainties.

Contribution

It introduces new WISE W3 and W4 band relations for estimating SFRs, calibrated against total infrared luminosity, and demonstrates their effectiveness across diverse galaxy types.

Findings

W3 band relation has 0.15 dex scatter over 5 orders of magnitude in SFR.

W3 relation aligns well with radio and hybrid SFR indicators.

Relations are insensitive to galaxy metallicity variations.

Abstract

We present accurate resolved $WISE$ photometry of galaxies in the combined SINGS and KINGFISH sample. The luminosities in the W3 12$\mu$m and W4 23$\mu$m bands are calibrated to star formation rates (SFRs) derived using the total infrared luminosity, avoiding UV/optical uncertainties due to dust extinction corrections. The W3 relation has a 1-$\sigma$ scatter of 0.15 dex over nearly 5 orders of magnitude in SFR and 12$\mu$m luminosity, and a range in host stellar mass from dwarf (10$^7$ M$_\odot$) to $\sim3\times$M$_\star$ (10$^{11.5}$ M$_\odot$) galaxies. In the absence of deep silicate absorption features and powerful active galactic nuclei, we expect this to be a reliable SFR indicator chiefly due to the broad nature of the W3 band. By contrast the W4 SFR relation shows more scatter (1-$\sigma =$ 0.18 dex). Both relations show reasonable agreement with radio continuum-derived SFRs and excellent accordance with so-called "hybrid" H$\alpha + 24 \mu$m and FUV$+$24$\mu$m indicators. Moreover, the $WISE$ SFR relations appear to be insensitive to the metallicity range in the sample. We also compare our results with IRAS-selected luminous infrared galaxies, showing that the $WISE$ relations maintain concordance, but systematically deviate for the most extreme galaxies. Given the all-sky coverage of $WISE$ and the performance of the W3 band as a SFR indicator, the $L_{12\mu \rm m}$ SFR relation could be of great use to studies of nearby galaxies and forthcoming large area surveys at optical and radio wavelengths.