The far-infrared/radio correlation and radio spectral index of galaxies in the SFR-M∗plane up to z~2

Abstract

We study the evolution of the radio spectral index and far-infrared/radio correlation (FRC) across the star-formation rate - stellar masse (i.e. SFR-M∗) plane up to z ~ 2. We start from a stellar-mass-selected sample of galaxies with reliable SFR and redshift estimates. We then grid the SFR-M∗plane in several redshift ranges and measure the infrared luminosity, radio luminosity, radio spectral index, and ultimately the FRC index (i.e. qFIR) of each SFR-M∗-z bin. The infrared luminosities of our SFR-M∗-z bins are estimated using their stacked far-infrared flux densities inferred from observations obtained with the Herschel Space Observatory. Their radio luminosities and radio spectral indices (i.e. α, where Sν∝ ν-α) are estimated using their stacked 1.4 GHz and 610 MHz flux densities from the Very Large Array and Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope, respectively. Our far-infrared and radio observations include the most widely studied blank extragalactic fields - GOODS-N, GOODS-S, ECDFS, and COSMOS - covering a total sky area of ~2.0 deg2. Using this methodology, we constrain the radio spectral index and FRC index of star-forming galaxies with M∗> 1010M⊙and 0 < 0.8), cannot be firmly ruled out using our dataset.