LOFAR/H-ATLAS: The low-frequency radio luminosity - star-formation rate relation

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.Radio emission is a key indicator of star-formation activity in galaxies, but the radio luminosity-star formation relation has to date been studied almost exclusively at frequencies of 1.4 GHz or above. At lower radio frequencies the effects of thermal radio emission are greatly reduced, and so we would expect the radio emission observed to be completely dominated by synchrotron radiation from supernova-generated cosmic rays. As part of the LOFAR Surveys Key Science project, the Herschel-ATLAS NGP field has been surveyed with LOFAR at an effective frequency of 150 MHz. We select a sample from the MPA-JHU catalogue of SDSS galaxies in this area: the combination of Herschel, optical and mid-infrared data enable us to derive star-formation rates (SFRs) for our sources using spectral energy distribution fitting, allowing a detailed study of the low-frequency radio luminosity--star-formation relation in the nearby Universe. For those objects selected as star-forming galaxies (SFGs) using optical emission line diagnostics, we find a tight relationship between the 150 MHz radio luminosity ($L_{150}$) and SFR. Interestingly, we find that a single power-law relationship between $L_{150}$ and SFR is not a good description of all SFGs: a broken power law model provides a better fit. This may indicate an additional mechanism for the generation of radio-emitting cosmic rays. Also, at given SFR, the radio luminosity depends on the stellar mass of the galaxy. Objects which were not classified as SFGs have higher 150-MHz radio luminosity than would be expected given their SFR, implying an important role for low-level active galactic nucleus activity.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Magnetic field evolution in interacting galaxies

Violent gravitational interactions can change the morphologies of galaxies and, by means of merging, transform them into elliptical galaxies. We aim to investigate how they affect the evolution of galactic magnetic fields. We selected 16 systems of interacting galaxies and compared their radio emission and estimated magnetic field strengths with their star-forming activity, far-infrared emission, and the stage of tidal interaction. We find a general evolution of magnetic fields: for weak interactions the strength of magnetic field is almost constant (10-15muG) as interaction advances, then it increases up to 2x, peaks at the nuclear coalescence (25muG), and decreases again, down to 5-6muG, for the post-merger remnants. The magnetic field strength for whole galaxies is weakly affected by the star formation rate (SFR), while the dependence is higher for galactic centres. We show that the morphological distortions visible in the radio total and polarized emission do not depend statistically on the global or local SFRs, while they do increase with the advance of interaction. The constructed radio-far-infrared relations for interacting and non-interacting galaxies display a similar balance between the generation of cosmic rays, magnetic fields, and the production of the thermal energy and dust radiation. The process of strong gravitational interactions can efficiently magnetize the merger's surroundings, having a similar magnetizing effect on intergalactic medium as supernova explosions or galactic winds. If interacting galaxies generate some ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), the disk or magnetized outflows can deflect them (up to 23 degrees), and make an association of the observed UHECRs with the sites of their origin very uncertain.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, 5 tables. Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, minor changes to v