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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
As part of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey we have investigated the rest-frame far-infrared (FIR) properties of a sample of more than 4800 Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North field. Most LBGs are not detected individually, but we do detect a sub-sample of 12 objects at 0.7 < z < 1.6 and one object at z = 2.0. The LBGs have been selected using color-color diagrams; the ones detected by Herschel SPIRE have redder colors than the others, while the undetected ones have colors consistent with average LBGs at z > 2.5. The spectral energy distributions of the objects detected in the rest-frame FIR are investigated using the code cigale to estimate physical parameters. We include far-UV (FUV) data from GALEX. We find that LBGs detected by SPIRE are high mass, luminous infrared galaxies. It appears that LBGs are located in a triangle-shaped region in the AFUV vs. LogLFUV = 0 diagram limited by AFUV = 0 at the bottom and by a diagonal following the temporal evolution of the most massive galaxies from the bottom-right to the top-left of the diagram. This upper envelop can be used as upper limits for the UV dust attenuation as a function of LFUV. The limits of this region are well explained using a closed-box model, where the chemical evolution of galaxies produces metals, which in turn lead to higher dust attenuation when the galaxies age.