The infrared-radio relation in the local universe

TL;DR

This study refines the calibration of the local infrared-radio relation in star-forming galaxies, confirming its linearity and providing updated normalization, which enhances the use of radio emission as a dust-unobscured star formation indicator.

Contribution

It improves the calibration of the local radio luminosity–SFR relation and tests for nonlinearity, using stacking and survival analysis on Herschel and radio survey data.

Findings

No deviations from linearity in the radio luminosity–SFR relation.

Normalized relation is intermediate between previous studies.

Results support using radio as a star formation tracer in the local universe.

Abstract

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is expected to detect high-redshift galaxies with star formation rates (SFRs) up to two orders of magnitude lower than Herschel surveys and will thus boost the ability of radio astronomy to study extragalactic sources. The tight infrared-radio correlation offers the possibility of using radio emission as a dust-unobscured star formation diagnostic. However, the physics governing the link between radio emission and star formation is poorly understood, and recent studies have pointed to differences in the exact calibration required when radio is to be used as a star formation tracer. We improve the calibration of the relation of the local radio luminosity--SFR and to test whether there are nonlinearities in it. We used a sample of Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) sources and investigated their radio luminosity, which was derived using the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) and Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) maps. We stacked the bins of infrared luminosity and SFR and accounted for bins with no detections in the stacked images using survival analysis fitting. This approach was tested using Monte Carlo simulations. After removing sources from the sample that have excess radio emission, which is indicative of nuclear radio activity, we found no deviations from linearity of the mean relations between radio luminosity and either SFR or infrared luminosity. We analyzed the link between radio emission and SFR or infrared luminosity using a local sample of star-forming galaxies without evidence of nuclear radio activity and found no deviations from linearity, although our data are also consistent with the small nonlinearity reported by some recent analyses. The normalizations of these relations are intermediate between those reported by earlier works.