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R. Kennicutt, E. Bell, K. Gordon, D. Zaritsky (U. Arizona)
Accurately tracing the cosmic star formation history in the UV requires a firm understanding of how the observed UV luminosities of galaxies are influenced by dust attenuation and other systematic effects. By comparing UV-derived star formation rates (SFRs) of galaxies with those derived for the same objects from other tracers such as H\alpha, the far-infrared continuum, and the thermal radio continuum, we can test the reliability of the respective SFR scales, and formulate improved extinction corrections for the UV.
This talk will briefly highlight two recent applications of this approach, an analysis of the integrated SFRs of a sample of nearby galaxies observed with the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, and a set of young star-forming regions in the LMC observed from the far-UV to centimeter radio wavelengths. Future prospects for extending this approach with SIRTF will also be discussed.
The results presented in this paper have been supported by the NASA grants NAG5-3501 and NAG5-8426, and by NSF grants AST-9900789 and AST-9619576.