Paper 1:

# Evolution of the far-infrared luminosity functions in the Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic Legacy Survey

H. Patel, D. L. Clements, M.Vaccari, D. J. Mortlock, M. Rowan-Robinson, I. Perez-Fournon
(Submitted on 25 May 2012)

We present new observational determination of the evolution of the rest-frame 70 and 160 micron and total infrared (TIR) galaxy luminosity functions (LFs) using 70 micron data from the Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic Legacy Survey (SWIRE). The LFs were constructed for sources with spectroscopic redshifts only in the XMM-LSS and Lockman Hole fields from the SWIRE photometric redshift catalogue. The 70 micron and TIR LFs were constructed in the redshift range 0<z<1.2 and the 160 micron LF was constructed in the redshift range 0<z<0.5 using a parametric Bayesian and the vmax methods. We assume in our models, that the faint-end power-law index of the LF does not evolve with redshifts. We find the the double power-law model is a better representation of the IR LF than the more commonly used power-law and Gaussian model. We model the evolution of the FIR LFs as a function of redshift where where the characteristic luminosity, $L^\ast$ evolve as $\propto(1+z)^{\alpha_\textsc{l}}$. The rest-frame 70 micron LF shows a strong luminosity evolution out to z=1.2 with alpha_l=3.41^{+0.18}_{-0.25}. The rest-frame 160 micron LF also showed rapid luminosity evolution with alpha_l=5.53^{+0.28}_{-0.23} out to z=0.5. The rate of evolution in luminosity is consistent with values estimated from previous studies using data from IRAS, ISO and Spitzer. The TIR LF evolves in luminosity with alpha_l=3.82^{+0.28}_{-0.16} which is in agreement with previous results from Spitzer 24 micron which find strong luminosity evolution. By integrating the LF we calculated the co-moving IR luminosity density out to z=1.2, which confirm the rapid evolution in number density of LIRGs and ULIRGs which contribute ~68^{+10}_{-07} % to the co-moving star formation rate density at z=1.2. Our results based on 70 micron data confirms that the bulk of the star formation at z=1 takes place in dust obscured objects.

 Comments: 17 pages, 14 figures Subjects: Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) Cite as: arXiv:1205.5690v1 [astro-ph.CO]

Paper 2:

# “Counterpart” method for abundance determinations in HII regions

Leonid S. Pilyugin, Eva K. Grebel, Lars Mattsson
(Submitted on 25 May 2012)

We suggest a new way of the determining abundances and electron temperatures in HII regions from strong emission lines. Our approach is based on the standard assumption that HII regions with similar intensities of strong emission lines have similar physical properties and abundances. A “counterpart” for a studied HII region may be chosen among HII regions with well-measured abundances (reference HII regions) by comparison of carefully chosen combinations of strong line intensities. Then the abundances in the investigated HII region can be assumed to be the same as that in its counterpart. In other words, we suggest to determine the abundances in HII regions “by precedent”. To get more reliable abundances for the considered HII region, a number of reference HII regions is selected and then the abundances in the target HII region is estimated through extra-/interpolation. We will refer to this method of abundance determination as the counterpart method or, for brevity, the C method. We define a sample of reference HII regions and verify the validity of the C method. We find that this method produces reliable abundances. Finally, the C method is used to obtain the radial abundance distributions in the extended discs of the spiral galaxies M83, NGC4625 and NGC 628.

 Comments: 21 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in the MNRAS Subjects: Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) Cite as: arXiv:1205.5716v1 [astro-ph.CO]