GAMA/G10-COSMOS/3D-HST: the 0 < z < 5 cosmic star formation history, stellar-mass, and dust-mass densities

Abstract

We use the energy-balance code MAGPHYS to determine stellar and dust masses, and dust corrected star-formation rates for over 200,000 GAMA galaxies, 170,000 G10-COSMOS galaxies and 200,000 3D-HST galaxies. Our values agree well with previously reported measurements and constitute a representative and homogeneous dataset spanning a broad range in stellar mass (10 8 -10 12 M ), dust mass (10 6 -10 9 M ), and star-formation rates (0.01-100M yr −1 ), and over a broad redshift range (0.0 < z < 5.0). We combine these data to measure the cosmic star-formation history (CSFH), the stellar-mass density (SMD), and the dust-mass density (DMD) over a 12 Gyr timeline. The data mostly agree with previous estimates, where they exist, and provide a quasi-homogeneous dataset using consistent mass and star-formation estimators with consistent underlying assumptions over the full time range. As a consequence our formal errors are significantly reduced when compared to the historic literature. Integrating our cosmic star-formation history we precisely reproduce the stellar-mass density with an ISM replenishment factor of 0.50 ± 0.07, consistent with our choice of Chabrier IMF plus some modest amount of stripped stellar mass. Exploring the cosmic dust density evolution, we find a gradual increase in dust density with lookback time. We build a simple phenomenological model from the CSFH to account for the dust mass evolution, and infer two key conclusions: (1) For every unit of stellar mass which is formed 0.0065-0.004 units of dust mass is also formed; (2) Over the history of the Universe approximately 90 to 95 per cent of all dust formed has been destroyed and/or ejected.

Infrared luminosity functions and dust mass functions in the EAGLE simulation

“…• We find a dust mass density evolution of ρ dust ∝ (1 + z) 0.80 out to z = 1. This evolution is in reasonable agreement with the one derived from GAMA, G10-COSMOS and 3D-HST observations (Driver et al 2018). On the contrary, the evolution of the EAGLE-SKIRT infrared luminosity densities underestimates the observed evolution significantly and systematically.…”

“…Compared to the luminosity density, our estimate for the evolution of the cosmic dust mass density is in fairly good agreement with observational data, especially with the recent evolutionary trends derived from GAMA, G10-COSMOS and 3D-HST observations (Driver et al 2018). This agreement is interesting, because there could be various reasons why one could expect an increasing disagreement with increasing redshift (see also the discussion in Baes et al 2019).…”

“…Finally, in the bottom panel of Fig. 5, we compare the evolution of the EAGLE-SKIRT dust mass density with observational estimates by Dunne et al (2011) andDriver et al (2018). Interestingly, the data sets, both based on MAGPHYS modelling, seem to be incompatible.…”

“…Note that these data do not correspond to the data in Tables 1 and 2 of their paper, however, as these correspond to the observed reference frame. Instead, we used the MAGPHYS fits to the CSED at different redshifts as provided online by Andrews et al (1 + z) 0.80 Driver et al 2018Dunne et al 2011. Redshift evolution of the 250 µm luminosity density, the TIR luminosity density, and the dust mass density, as obtained from the EAGLE-SKIRT luminosity functions and dust mass functions shown in Fig.…”

“…Ignoring their last data point, which they argue is prone to incompleteness and/or photo-z bias, Dunne et al (2011) find a very strong evolution in the dust mass density out to z ∼ 0.4, which can be well described by ρ dust ∝ (1 + z) 4.5 . The dust mass density evolution shown by Driver et al (2018) is based on roughly half a million sources from the GAMA, G10-COSMOS (Davies et al 2015;Andrews et al 2017a) and 3D-HST (Brammer et al 2012) surveys. They do not recover the steep evolution at low redshifts found by Dunne et al (2011): instead, they report a relatively flat dust mass density function.…”