Properties of star forming galaxies in AKARI deep field-south

Abstract

Aims. The main aim of this work is the characterization of physical properties of galaxies detected in the far-infrared (FIR) in the AKARI Deep Field-South (ADF-S) survey. Methods. Starting from a catalog of the 1000 brightest ADF-S sources in the WIDE-S (90 μm) AKARI band, we constructed a subsample of galaxies with spectral coverage from the ultraviolet to the FIR. We then analyzed the multiwavelength properties of this 90 μm selected sample of galaxies. For galaxies without known spectroscopic redshifts we computed photometric redshifts using the codes Photometric Analysis for Redshift Estimate (Le PHARE) and Code Investigating GALaxy Emission (CIGALE), tested these photometric redshifts using spectroscopic redshifts, and compared the performances of both codes. To test the reliability of parameters obtained by fitting spectral energy distributions, a mock catalogue was generated. Results. We built a large multiwavelength catalog of more than 500 ADF-S galaxies. We successfully fitted spectral energy distributions of 186 galaxies with χ2min <4, and analyzed the output parameters of the fits. We conclude that our sample consists mostly of nearby actively star-forming galaxies, and all our galaxies have a relatively high metallicity. We estimated photometric redshifts for 113 galaxies from the whole ADF-S sample. Comparing the performance of Le PHARE and CIGALE, we found that CIGALE gives more reliable redshift estimates for our galaxies, which implies that including the IR photometry allows for substantial improvement of photometric redshift estimation. © 2014 ESO.