A deeper look at the dust attenuation law of star-forming galaxies at high redshift

Abstract

A diverse range of dust attenuation laws is found in star-forming galaxies. In particular, Tress et al. (2018) studied the SHARDS survey to constrain the NUV bump strength (B) and the total-to-selective ratio (R_(V)) of 1,753 star-forming galaxies in the GOODS-N field at 1.5<z<3. We revisit here this sample to assess the implications and possible causes of the correlation found between R_(V) and B. The UVJ bicolour plot and main sequence of star formation are scrutinised to look for clues into the observed trend. The standard boundary between quiescent and star-forming galaxies is preserved when taking into account the wide range of attenuation parameters. However, an additional degeneracy – regarding the effective attenuation law – is added to the standard loci of star-forming galaxies in the UVJ diagram. A simple phenomenological model with an age-dependent extinction (at fixed dust composition) is compatible with the observed trend between R_(V) and B, whereby the opacity decreases with the age of the populations, resulting in a weaker NUV bump when the overall attenuation is shallower (greyer). In addition, we compare the constraints obtained by the SHARDS sample with dust models from the literature, supporting a scenario where geometry could potentially drive the correlation between R_(V) and B.