"A Multi-Wavelength Census of Star Formation and Dust in Galaxies at z ~ 2"

 

 

Redshift of z ~ 2 is an important era in the history of the universe, as it contains the peak of star formation rate density and quasar activity. I will talk about the properties of galaxies during this era from two different, yet complementary, aspects: star formation and mass assembly, and galactic dust enrichment. In this study, I use a wealth of spectroscopic data obtained by the MOSDEF survey. I will introduce the MOSDEF survey, which is a multi-institutional project that uses the near-IR MOSFIRE spectrograph on the Keck I telescope to characterize the gaseous and stellar contents of ~ 1500 rest-frame optically selected galaxies at 1.37 < z < 3.80. Furthermore, I incorporate the mid- and far-IR data from the Spitzer and Herschel telescopes to obtain a complete census of obscured and unobscured star formation in galaxies. Specifically, I explore the star-formation rate and stellar mass relation at z ~ 2, using multi-wavelength star-formation rate tracers (UV, Hα, 24 micron, and far-IR). Moreover, I investigate, for the first time, the variation of the PAH emission at 7.7 micron, traced by Spitzer/MIPS 24 micron, in galaxies spanning a wide range in metallicity at z ~ 2. Our results have important implications for high-redshift studies that adopt 24 micron flux to derive total IR luminosity and star-formation rate.