Understanding Infrared Galaxy Populations: the SWIRE Legacy Survey

Rowan-Robinson, M.; Lonsdale, C.; Smith, G.; Surace, J.; Shupe, D.; Polletta, M.; Siana, B.; Babbedge, T.; Oliver, S.; Perez-Fournon, I.; Franceschini, A.; Afonso, A.; Luis, Clements, D.; Davoodi, P.; Domingue, D.; Efstathiou, A.; Fang, F.; Farrah, D.; Frayer, D.; Hatziminaoglou, E.; Gonzalez-Solares, E.; Xu, K.; Padgett, D.; Vaccari, M.
Bibliographical reference

The Second Annual Spitzer Science Center Conference: Infrared Diagnostics of Galaxy Evolution. ASP Conference Series, Vol. 381, proceedings of the conference held 14-16 November, 2005 in Pasadena, California, USA. Edited by Ranga-Ram Chary, Harry I. Teplitz and Kartik Sheth. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2008., p.216

Advertised on:
3
2008
Number of authors
24
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
6
Refereed citations
5
Description
We discuss spectral energy distributions, photometric redshifts, redshift distributions, luminosity functions, source-counts and the far infrared to optical luminosity ratio for sources in the SWIRE Legacy Survey. The spectral energy distributions of selected SWIRE sources are modelled in terms of a simple set of galaxy and quasar templates in the optical and near infrared, and with a set of dust emission templates (cirrus, M82 starburst, Arp 220 starburst, and AGN dust torus) in the mid infrared. The optical data, together with the IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 μm data, have been used to determine photometric redshifts. For galaxies with known spectroscopic redshifts there is a notable improvement in the photometric redshift when the IRAC data are used, with a reduction in the rms scatter from 10 % in (1+z) to 5 %. While further spectroscopic data are needed to confirm this result, the prospect of determining good photometric redshifts for the 2 million extragalactic objects in SWIRE is excellent. The distribution of the different infrared sed types in the L_{ir}/L_{opt} versus L_{ir} plane, where L_{ir} and L_{opt} are the infrared and optical bolometric luminosities, is discussed. Source-counts at 24, 70 and 160 μm are discussed, and luminosity functions at 3.6 and 24 μm are presented.