Dust attenuation in UV-selected starbursts at high redshift and their local counterparts: Implications for the cosmic star formation rate density

Abstract

We present a new analysis of the dust obscuration in starburst galaxies at low and high redshifts. This study is motivated by our unique sample of the most extreme UV-selected starburst galaxies in the nearby universe (z < 0.3), found to be good analogs of high-redshift Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) in most of their physical properties. We find that the dust properties of the Lyman break analogs (LBAs) are consistent with the relation derived previously by Meurer et al. (M99) that is commonly used to dust-correct star formation rate (SFR) measurements at a very wide range of redshifts. We directly compare our results with high-redshift samples (LBGs, "BzK," and submillimeter galaxies at z ∼ 2-3) having IR data either from Spitzer or Herschel. The attenuation in typical LBGs at z ∼ 2-3 and LBAs is very similar. Because LBAs are much better analogs to LBGs compared to previous local star-forming samples, including M99, the practice of dust-correcting the SFRs of high-redshift galaxies based on the local calibration is now placed on a much more solid ground. We illustrate the importance of this result by showing how the locally calibrated relation between UV measurements and extinction is used to estimate the integrated, dust-corrected SFR density at z - 2-6. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society.