The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey: The nature of the faint source population and SFR-radio luminosity relation using Prospector

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that a single SED-fitting code, Prospector, can effectively classify faint radio sources and analyze their properties, revealing a weaker stellar mass dependence in the SFR-radio luminosity relation than previously thought.

Contribution

The paper introduces the use of Prospector for classifying radio sources and studying the SFR-radio luminosity relation, simplifying the process and providing new insights into galaxy populations.

Findings

92% of radio sources classified as star-forming, AGN, or radio-quiet AGN

Weaker stellar mass dependence in the SFR-radio luminosity relation than prior studies

Potential disappearance of mass dependence at high SFRs

Abstract

Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting has been extensively used to determine the nature of the faint radio source population. Recent efforts have combined fits from multiple SED-fitting codes to account for the host galaxy and any active nucleus that may be present. We show that it is possible to produce similar-quality classifications using a single energy-balance SED fitting code, Prospector, to model up to 26 bands of UV$-$far-infrared aperture-matched photometry for $\sim$31,000 sources in the ELAIS-N1 field from the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) Deep fields first data release. One of a new generation of SED-fitting codes, Prospector accounts for potential contributions from radiative active galactic nuclei (AGN) when estimating galaxy properties, including star formation rates (SFRs) derived using non-parametric star formation histories. Combining this information with radio luminosities, we classify 92 per cent of the radio sources as a star-forming galaxy, high/low-excitation radio galaxy, or radio-quiet AGN and study the population demographics as a function of 150 MHz flux density, luminosity, SFR, stellar mass, redshift and apparent $r$-band magnitude. Finally, we use Prospector SED fits to investigate the SFR$-$150 MHz luminosity relation for a sample of $\sim$$133,000~3.6~\mu$m-selected $z<1$ sources, finding that the stellar mass dependence is significantly weaker than previously reported, and may disappear altogether at $\log_{10} (\mathrm{SFR}/M_\odot~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}) > 0.5$. This approach makes it significantly easier to classify radio sources from LoTSS and elsewhere, and may have important implications for future studies of star-forming galaxies at radio wavelengths.