A Multiwavelength Consensus on the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies at z~2

Understand

We compare various star formation rate (SFR) indicators for star-forming galaxies at $1.4<z<2.5$ in the COSMOS field.

• The main focus is on the SFRs from the far-IR (PACS-Herschel data) with those from the ultraviolet, for galaxies selected according to the BzK criterion.
• FIR-selected samples lead to a vastly different slope of the SFR-stellar mass ($M_*$) relation, compared to that of the dominant main sequence population as measured from the UV, since the FIR selection picks predominantly only a minority of outliers.
• However, there is overall agreement between the main sequences derived with the two SFR indicators, when stacking on the PACS maps the BzK-selected galaxies.