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# Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey XIII: Spectral Energy Distributions for Galaxies in the Region of the Hubble Deep Field NorthBased in large part on observations obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the NASA,

## 1 Introduction

In the present paper, we combine the results of our redshift survey in the region of the Hubble Deep Field North (henceforth HDF) (Cohen et al. 2000) with multicolor photometric databases to derive the rest frame spectral energy distributions (henceforth SEDs) of the sample’s galaxies. After defining the form of the SED we adopt, and exploring the limits of validity thereof, we concentrate on what can be determined from the behavior of the SED parameters themselves as a function of redshift, galaxy spectral type (i.e. the presence or absence of key emission and absorption features) and luminosity. A comparison of the observed behavior of the SED parameters with the predictions of galaxy evolutionary synthesis models reveals important differences.

The SEDs of the star forming galaxies are then used to constrain possible presence of a substantial population of dusty starburst galaxies and to test our ability to predict the mid-IR thermal emission from dust in star forming galaxies in §5.3. Constraints on the variation in internal reddening from galaxy to galaxy of a given spectral type are derived as well. We compare the rest frame UV SEDs of the bluest star forming galaxies over the regime $`z=0`$ to $`z3`$.

We also evaluate the ability of photometric redshift schemes to discern the 4000Å break given realistic SED distributions and errors characteristic of ground based photometry in §6. We explore in §7 the conversion from luminosity in the rest-frame infrared into total stellar mass, which relies on a calibration from models of the integrated light of evolving galaxies. A short summary concludes the paper.

As in earlier papers in this series, we adopt the cosmology H$`{}_{0}{}^{}=60`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. Over the redshift interval of most interest, a flat universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and a Hubble constant of H$`{}_{0}{}^{}=67`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 gives galaxy luminosities very close to those derived below.

## 2 The Sample of Galaxies

We have recently completed an extensive redshift survey in the region of the HDF. The survey is magnitude-limited, with a selection at $`R`$, and objects are observed irrespective of morphology. Redshifts have been obtained for more than 92% of the objects in the HDF (Williams et al. 1996) with $`R<24`$, and for more than 92% of the objects within a circle whose diameter is 8 arcmin centered on the HDF with $`R<23`$. The redshift catalog, presented and described in detail in Cohen et al. (2000), contains 671 entries. Hogg et al. (2000) (henceforth H00) present a four filter photometric catalog for the region of the HDF including the Flanking Fields, with images in $`U_n`$, $`G`$ and $`R`$ contributed by C. Steidel, and it is their $`R`$ catalog that was used to define the samples for the redshift survey.

Appendix A gives an update to this survey with a total of 58 new redshifts, including 5 in the HDF itself. With this addition, the completion of the redshift sample in the HDF itself to $`R24`$ is now 95%, while the completion in the Flanking Fields to $`R<23`$ is now 93%.

Here we use only the sample of galaxies with $`0<z<1.5`$, eliminating the Galactic stars, the two broad-lined AGN with $`z<1.5`$, and the higher redshift ($`z3`$) objects 111The two AGNs with $`z<1.5`$ are sometimes included in the figures. leaving 590 galaxies. We do this as our ground based photometry is measuring largely the rest frame UV for $`z3`$ galaxies and does not provide enough coverage in the infrared to yield an adequate determination of rest frame optical SEDs.

The rest frame UV is very poorly determined in the nearest galaxies with $`z<0.25`$ when photometry is limited to ground based photometry without access to space based mid and far UV observations. Hence they are eliminated in the rest of this paper. Although SEDs are determined and tabulated for galaxies with $`z<0.25`$ here, we will utilize in the subsequent discussion the sample of galaxies restricted to the range $`0.25<z<1.5`$, which contains 552 galaxies of which 107 are in the HDF itself.

The results presented throughout this paper are robust to the elimination of the fainter galaxies in the HDF, where the sample is deepest.

### 2.1 The Redshift Ranges

The present sample of galaxies in the region of the HDF with $`0.25<z<1.5`$ and with SEDs considered reliable contains 519 galaxies, of which 105 are in the HDF itself. 222In §3.8 we find that 33 of the galaxies have SEDs not considered reliable. These are divided into four redshift ranges: “low” ($`0.25z<0.5`$), “mid” ($`0.5z<0.8`$), “high” ($`0.8z<1.05`$), and “highest” ($`1.05z1.5`$). In the “highest” redshift range, the assignment of galaxy spectral classes is less accurate (see the discussion in Cohen et al. 1999a) and the redshift completeness is affected by the fact that the intrinsically strong \[OII\] 3727Å emission line is shifted into the region beyond 7500Å, where strong night sky emission lines make detection of faint emission lines from distant galaxies more difficult.

## 3 The Derivation of the SEDs

The derivation of the spectral energy distribution for a galaxy requires a set of photometric measurements for the object with $`N`$ filters, a set of effective wavelengths and flux zero point calibrations for the filters, and a model for fitting the SED. Our goal is an overall characterization of the SED suitable for the determination of luminosity functions given the fact that we are dealing to a large extent with ground based photometry of faint galaxies.

We are trying to obtain a set of redshift independent parameters characterizing the rest frame SED of a galaxy from a set of observations made at filter bandpasses fixed in the observed frame. We would like to be able to use our SED model parameters to predict fluxes of galaxies from 2400 Å to 2.2$`\mu `$ in the rest frame over the redshift range $`0.25z1.5`$ with an accuracy of 25% (0.1 dex).

The complexity of the SED model to be used here is restricted by the limited photometry available for these objects, both in terms of accuracy for these faint galaxies and also in wavelength sampling. Were we dealing with HST data only (for the same set of filters) or with much brighter galaxies, a much more sophisticated approach such as that of Budavári et al. (2000) would be justified.

### 3.1 The Sources of Photometry

Since the catalog of H00 was used to define the sample for the redshift survey of Cohen et al. (2000) and since it provides four filter photometry ($`U_n`$, $`G`$, $`R`$ and $`K_s`$) for the entire sample, we adopt it as the primary photometric source. The H00 photometry is consistent to within the uncertainties with the more accurate photometry of Williams et al. (1996) for objects in the HDF itself for the optical colors. In the Flanking Fields around the HDF, we supplement the photometric database of H00 with the $`I`$ and $`K`$ measurements of Barger et al. (1998). We utilized primarily $`I`$ from Barger et al. (1998) to fill in gaps in the wavelength coverage of H00. For the faintest objects (in the infrared) in the Flanking Fields, we used $`K`$ as well, as the limiting magnitude of the Barger et al. (1998) database is fainter at $`K`$ than that of H00. The $`U,B,V,R`$ bands of of Barger et al. are used to supply added confidence in the $`U_n,G,R`$ photometry of H00. Thus, for an object in the Flanking Fields, there is a maximum of 10 observations, with two independent measurements for three colors ($`U,R`$ and $`K`$), hence seven distinct filter bandpasses.

Within the HDF, in addition to the photometric catalog of H00, we also use the $`I,J,H,K`$ photometry of Fernandez-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil (1999). Their catalog is based on the HST images of the HDF with the F814W filter for $`I`$, and on their analysis of IR images of the HDF from KPNO described in Dickinson (2000). The red end of the SED is thus better determined for galaxies in the HDF itself, due to the existence of the $`J`$ and $`H`$ photometry and the very high quality of the F814 HST images compared to ground based $`I`$ images.

The H00 and Fernandez-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil (1999) photometric databases appear to be consistent with each other. They both use the Sextractor code (Bertin & Arnouts 1996) for object selection, and both have a scheme to handle extended objects, yet still preserve accuracy for the smallest and faintest galaxies. The unpublished photometry of Barger et al. (1998) treats the extrapolation to the total magnitude of extended objects differently from the procedure adopted in H00.

We have adopted a single effective wavelength for each filter for all objects irrespective of their spectral indices, ignoring any dependence of $`\lambda _{eff}`$ on the color of the object. This is a reasonable assumption given the precision of our photometry for faint objects and the desired precision of the SED indices to be derived. The effective wavelengths of the various filters are given in an appendix.

Once the effective wavelengths were defined, the zero points of the observed flux $`f_\nu `$ for the Vega-relative photometry were taken from Fukugita, Shimasaku & Ichikawa (1995). The HDF photometry of Fernandez-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil (1999) is already presented in the form of observed flux per unit frequency $`f_\nu `$.

A small extinction of E($`B`$-$`V`$) = 0.012 mag was adopted based on the maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998); appropriate corrections were applied to each filter.

Our photometric database covers $`U`$ through $`K`$ in the observed frame. The red end of this corresponds to 0.9$`\mu `$ in the rest frame of the highest redshift considered here and to $`1.3\mu `$ for a more typical $`z0.7`$ galaxy. Prediction of fluxes in the rest frame redward of 0.9$`\mu `$ requires trusting the parametric form of our adopted SED model described below for the highest redshift galaxies in the sample.

### 3.2 The Dual Power Law Model for the SEDs

We initially adopted the same form for SEDs as in Cohen et al. (1999a), namely we assume that the emitted luminosity per unit frequency in the rest frame over the wavelength regime 0.2 to 1.6$`\mu `$ can be represented by a power law whose index may change at 4000Å. Thus $`L_\nu `$, with units of Watts/Hz, is assumed $`\nu ^\alpha `$ with an index in the region redward of 4000Å (in the rest frame) denoted $`\alpha _{IR}`$ and an index in the rest frame UV of $`\alpha _{UV}`$. Three parameters are required to characterize each SED. We refer to this as the 2p SED model.

Several tests of the validity of this model have been made to establish the wavelength range over which it can represent galaxy SEDs with the requisite degree of precision. Both SEDs from calculations of the integrated light of evolving galaxies and SEDs interpolated from spectrophotometric and broad-band photometric observations of nearby galaxies have been used in these trials. In the first test, we fit the galaxy evolution models of Poggianti (1997), using the filter transmission curves for the set of filters for which photometric catalogs exist in the region of the HDF. Figure 1a illustrates SEDs from Poggianti of a local elliptical, Sa and Sc galaxy (henceforth denoted as the standard set of test SEDs) observed at $`z=0.6`$. The observed filter bands are the large circles plotted at their appropriate rest wavelengths. While the spectral region beyond the 4000Å break for all the models from Poggianti that were examined is well represented by a single power law with deviations never exceeding 0.1 dex, the 2p model systematically predicts too much flux beyond 1.7$`\mu `$.

Tests of the 2p model were also carried out with galaxy SEDs predicted from Worthey (1984) and with a set of SEDs of nearby galaxies of various morphological types constructed by G. Neugebauer (private communication, 2000) based on observations in the the UV and optical assembled by Coleman, Wu & Weedman (1980) supplemented with broad-band IR photometry from Aaronson (1978) and from Frogel et al. (1978). In all cases the 2p SED overpredicts the flux in the near infrared.

We compare the predicted flux at an observed wavelength of 3.2$`\mu `$ from our SED model with those galaxies in the HDF with detections at that wavelength from Hogg et al. (2000). Given the typical redshift of these galaxies of $`z0.5`$, these observations have a typical rest wavelength of 2.1$`\mu `$. Again, the 2p model for the SED overpredicts the observed flux for the 9 galaxies with detections by about a factor of two.

This deviation in the near infrared between the power law and the galaxy flux presumably largely arises because one is then well into the long wavelength tail of a black-body distribution, where even for $`T`$ as low as 4000K, $`f_\lambda `$ is no longer rising rapidly with $`\lambda `$.

In the UV, the high spectral resolution of the Poggianti model grid demonstrates the existence of a different posible concern. Many of Poggianti’s models show fλ falling shortward of of the 4000Å break, and then rising again as flux from the youngest and hottest stars begins to contribute substantially. This curvature obviously cannot be reproduced well by a single power law flux in the UV.

These tests demonstrate that the 2p model SED is at best marginally adequate for our purposes.

### 3.3 A New Empirical Model for Galaxy SEDs

To avoid the difficulties of 2p SED model described above, we have developed a new model for galaxy SEDs. One natural way to introduce the desired curvature in the optical and near IR spectra region is to replace the power law with a black body function. However, the peak of the Planck function itself is too narrow to give a good fit to actual galaxy SEDs, as one might expect for a composite stellar population containing stars with a range of effective temperatures. The empirically determined function we adopt as our SED model, which provides a simple but versatile parameterization of galaxy SEDs with parameters that are physically motivated, has a mathematical form which we denote as a “stretched black body” (henceforth sBB). We apply the sBB function to fit the optical/near IR, while we retain a power law fit to the UV.

A wavelength $`\lambda _m`$ is specified as the wavelength at which the fit function changes. The “stretched wavelength” $`\lambda _s`$ corresponding to a rest frame wavelength $`\lambda _0`$ is then defined as

$$\lambda _s=\lambda _m+(\lambda _0\lambda _m)/f,$$

for $`\lambda _0\lambda _m`$, where $`f`$ is the stretch factor. To evaluate the sBB Planck function, the “stretched wavelength” is converted to a frequency in the usual way, $`\nu _s=c/\lambda _s`$, and then used in the calculation. This applies to both the $`\nu ^3`$ and exponential part of the Planck function, as well as the $`\nu `$ multiplier required to obtain luminosities. The temperature used in the Planck function is denoted as $`T(sBB)`$. The details of the fitting procedure are given in an appendix.

It is important to note that in this model, unlike in the 2p SED model, the flux at $`\lambda _m`$ from the red fit and from the blue fit is not automatically constrained to be the same. This offers the possibility of direct measurement of the the 4000Å break which in cool stars is due to enhanced absorption by metal lines and in hotter stars by the Balmer jump. An sBB fit thus has four parameters, $`\alpha _{UV}`$, $`T(sBB)`$, the blue side luminosity and the red side luminosity, both at $`\lambda _m`$. As described in the appendix, depending on the number and distribution with wavelength of the available filter bandpasses (i.e. photometric catalogs), the two luminosity parameters are not always independent.

There are two constants in a sBB fit, $`\lambda _m`$ and the wavelength stretching factor $`f`$. Their values were determined by optimizing $`\chi ^2`$ when a sBB fit was applied to the standard test set of Poggianti’s (1997) local galaxy SEDs observed at $`z=0`$ and at $`z=0.6`$. The resulting choices adopted henceforth for sBB fits are $`\lambda _m=4050`$ Å and $`f=1.6`$.

Figure 1b shows the sBB fit to the set of standard test SEDS, i.e. the same SEDs as is shown in Figure 1a. The sBB fit solves the problem of overpredicting the rest frame flux at $`K`$ and, with only one extra parameter, the sBB model shows a much better fit overall to predicted galaxy SEDs, as well as allowing a measurement of the 4000 Å break.

### 3.4 The Stability of the SED Parameters with Redshift

The model SED must measure the same values for its parameters irrespective of the redshift of a galaxy. Otherwise the flux cannot be predicted reliably at a fixed rest wavelength. This is particuarly difficult at $`K`$, as we are then extrapolating beyond the rest frame wavelength range of the available photometry for $`z>0`$. As pointed out by the referee, the 2p SED model fails this test. Figure 2 shows the output parameters from this model, $`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`\alpha _{IR}`$, applied to the set of standard local test SEDs as the redshift of observation is varied from 0 to 1.5. (The dependence of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ in the region $`z<0.25`$ should be ignored; see §2.) Note the large changes in output parameters for the 2p model SED as the redshift at which the galaxy is observed is varied.

This translates into predictions of flux using the 2p SED model which are, at the extremes of the rest wavelength range covered, so different from the those of the actual SED that our accuracy tolerance is grossly exceeded. Figure 3 shows the deviation from the fluxes of the standard test set of local SEDs predicted by the 2p SED model as the observations are carried out over the redshift range of interest, from $`z=0`$ to $`z=1.5`$. Results at four rest wavelengths, the two wavelength extremes of our range, 2400 Å and 2.2$`\mu `$, as well as at two intermediate wavelengths, 4350 and 7900 Å, are illustrated. As expected, the ability of the 2p SED model to predict the flux at the extreme ends of the wavelength range is poor, although in the central part of the wavelength range it is reasonably good.

Figures 4 and 5 show the equivalent tests applied to the sBB model. Note that Figures 3 and 5 are directly comparable; the same rest wavelengths, axis scales and plot symbols are used in both cases. We see that the predictive ability of the sBB fit is quite good; over the full redshift range $`0<z<1.5`$, the rest frame flux at $`K`$ is predicted to with $`\pm 0.1`$ dex (our required tolerance), while the rest frame flux at 2400Å is predicted almost as accurately for $`0.25<z<1.5`$.

At this point, with the sBB fits, the worst remaining problem is now in the rest frame UV (see figure 4). The overall trend towards measuring a bluer $`\alpha (UV)`$ as $`z`$ increases, particularly for the Sa and Sc SEDs, is probably due to an attempt to fit a curved SED which is “convex upward” as the contribution from younger stars increases and changes the curvature. In spite of this, we note that the flux prediction of the sBB model at 2400Å shown in Figure 5 is still close to or within our tolerances.

These tests have been repeated for the sBB model omitting the $`J`$ and $`H`$ band coverage, as occurs in the Flanking Fields of the HDF in contrast with the HDF itself, where $`J`$ and $`H`$ photometry is available. The sBB fits are still very good and remain within the specified tolerance until $`z>1.1`$.

### 3.5 Final Comments on the SED Models

Extrapolation beyond rest-frame $`K`$ or blueward of 2400 Å of our adopted form for galaxy SEDs is not appropriate.

Additional data on the 1.5 to 5$`\mu `$ SEDs of nearby galaxies at better spectral resolution than is provided by standard broad band infrared photometry would be helpful for improving the accuracy of galaxy synthesis models in the near IR.

### 3.6 Reddening

We have tried adding additional reddening to the SEDs of local galaxies, both synthesized from models and observed. As one might expect, an additional reddening of $`A_V=1`$ mag with the standard Galactic extinction curve produces an increase in $`\alpha _{UV}`$ of $``$2 and an increase in $`\alpha _{IR}`$ of $``$0.5. The fit over the wavelength range of interest is degraded, although not beyond the limit of acceptability until the additional $`A_V`$ reaches 2 mag. As we will see later, the range of the indices $`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`\alpha _{IR}`$ within each galaxy spectral type is sufficiently small that a range in reddening within each galaxy spectral type significantly exceeding $`\sigma (A_V)=1`$ mag can be ruled out. However, a much larger range in reddening can be tolerated if it is grayer than the standard Galactic extinction curve, and has, for example, the form advocated by Calzetti (1997).

### 3.7 Construction of the SEDs

The SEDs for the galaxies in the region of the HDF were constructed by calculating for each filter bandpass for which photometry exists the quantity $`\nu L_\nu =4\pi D_L^2\nu f_\nu =\nu _0L_{\nu _0}`$, where $`\nu `$ is the observed frequency and $`\nu _0`$ is the rest frame frequency. ($`D_L`$ is the luminosity distance in our adopted cosmology.) We then shift the observed effective wavelengths into the rest frame. For each galaxy a plot was made of the raw SED which was then inspected manually. For about 10% of the objects, one deviant point, presumably corresponding to one bad measurement, was adjusted. In addition, the difference in large aperture extrapolation between the H00 and Barger et al. datasets had to be removed. Our magnitude zero point is based on that of H00.

A fit to the set of $`N`$ values $`\nu L_\nu `$ for each galaxy was then attempted. Details of fitting procedures and how the luminosity at the matching point is handled are given in an appendix.

The resulting parameters for each galaxy for the 2p SEDs are the rest frame emitted luminosity at $`B`$, $`L(B)\nu L_\nu `$ evaluated at $`B`$ in the rest frame and the two power law indices. The range of $`\pm 1\sigma `$ values for $`\alpha _{UV}`$ was from 0.2 to 0.9, with a typical value $`0.5`$ in the Flanking Fields and $``$ 0.4 in the HDF itself. For the sBB fits, the resulting parameters are $`\alpha _{UV}`$, $`T`$, and $`L(\lambda _m:\mathrm{blue})`$ and $`L(\lambda _m:\mathrm{red})`$. These values are given in Table 1 for our sample.

### 3.8 Special Cases

A number of special cases arose for very faint or very crowded objects in the Flanking Fields. If there was no detection of a galaxy at 2.2$`\mu `$, then the median value of the IR parameter for that redshift range and galaxy spectral type (see §4) was adopted for the object. A check was made to be sure that this value was consistent with the limit of $`K20`$ of the H00 photometric survey and of the somewhat fainter limit for the Barger et al. (1998) survey.

If the object was very crowded, usually the fainter of a close pair on the sky, the H00 database only contains a $`R`$ mag, which was estimated after the main database was assembled during the cross checking of the redshift catalog with the photometric catalog (see Cohen et al. 2000 for details). In such cases, the relevant median was adopted for each of the SED parameters. The rest frame $`B`$ luminosity was then the only parameter calculated from the limited observations available.

There are a total of 33 such objects. These galaxies are not included in Table 1 nor in any plots of the spectral indices or calculations of their properties, but will be included in calculating the luminosity function in a future paper.

With two exceptions, we were able to determine reliable SEDs for all the galaxies with redshifts within the HDF itself.

## 4 Properties of the SEDs

We discuss the properties of the SEDs as a function of redshift, luminosity, galaxy star formation rate, etc. To demonstrate that the results are robust, we retain both the 2p and the sBB fits in the tables, but since the sBB model for galaxy SEDs is clearly superior, only those fits are shown in the remaining figures. We use the galaxy spectral classification scheme defined in Cohen et al. (1999b), which basically characterizes the strength of the strongest emission lines, particularly \[OII\] at 3727 Å, \[OIII\] at 5007 Å and H$`\alpha `$ relative to the strong absorption features, H and K of CaII and the normal absorption in the Balmer lines. To review briefly, “$``$” galaxies have spectra dominated by emission lines, “$`𝒜`$” galaxies have spectra dominated by absorption lines, while “$``$” galaxies are of intermediate type. Galaxies with broad emission lines are denoted as spectral class “$`𝒬`$”. Starburst galaxies showing the higher Balmer lines (H$`\gamma `$, H$`\delta `$, etc.) in emission are denoted by “$``$”, but for such faint objects, it was not always possible to distinguish them from “$``$” galaxies. These classifications were assigned for the galaxies our sample in the region of the HDF in Paper X (Cohen et al. 2000).

To illustrate our SEDs applied to real galaxies, Figure 6 shows the SEDs for the five sources in the HDF detected by Chandra (Hornschemeier et al. 2000) included in our sample. The mid-IR luminosities determined from ISO observations by Aussel et al. (1999) and the VLA radio luminosities inferred from the work of Richards et al. (1998) and Richards (2000) are shown as well when the galaxies were detected. The X-ray detections are in galaxies with spectral classes $`𝒬`$ (a broad lined AGN), $`𝒜`$, $``$, $``$ and $``$, i.e. three of the five do not show have strong narrow emission lines, hence do not show evidence for a high current rate of star formation.

### 4.1 The Correlation between SED Parameters and Galaxy Spectral Types

Table 2 gives the medians of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`\alpha _{IR}`$ from the 2p model SED over the four redshift ranges and for various spectral classes of galaxies. Table 3 provides the same for the parameters $`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`T`$ from the sBB model. (log($`T`$) is actually used.) Only galaxies with reliable redshifts (redshift quality class 1, 2, 4 or 6, see Cohen et al. 1999b for definitions) are used, as is true for all subsequent tables and figures. 333Unless otherwise specified, starbursts (galaxy spectral type $``$) are included with the $``$ galaxies. Broad-lined AGNs are excluded throughout. While the distribution of these indices is non-Gaussian, we have used the first and last quartiles of the distribution in each case to produce a corresponding $`\sigma `$ assuming a Gaussian distribution prevails.

The dispersion for each galaxy spectral type is a combination of the intrinsic dispersion and that induced by variations in internal reddening from galaxy to galaxy as well as the known uncertainties in determining the SED parameters. Making the absurd assumption that the first and last factors are negligible, these values of $`\sigma `$ can be used to set firm upper limits on internal reddening variations within galaxies. If one assumes a Galactic extinction law, then $`\sigma (A_V)1`$ mag will reproduce the observed range in $`\alpha _{IR}`$ for each of the three galaxy spectral classes. Again assuming a Galactic extinction law, the dispersion in reddening required to reproduce the range of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ is about 1/3 as large. The adoption of a grayer reddening curve will allow a larger range in $`A_V`$.

As expected, the galaxy spectral classes are correlated with the overall SED shape. “Bluer” galaxies (those with bluer continua) tend to show have stronger emission lines, while redder galaxies tend not to have detectable emission lines. This is apparent in the local Universe, and we reaffirm this again at much higher redshift. This is true not only for the rest-frame UV continuum, but also for the rest-frame Paschen continuum, although the effect is smaller there. The observation that galaxies with strong emission lines (i.e. those with strong current star formation) are bluer is one found by many other surveys, both locally and within the redshift range under discussion here, e.g. Lin et al. (1996) for the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, Ellis et al. (1996) for the LDSS survey, Cowie et al. (1996), Hammer et al. (1997) for the CFRS.

Figure 7 shows a plot of the two sBB SED parameters $`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`T`$ for galaxies in the “mid” and the “high” redshift ranges. This figure (when constructed using the 2p SED model parameters) looks very similar to the corresponding figure (Figure 5) of our analysis of data from our survey field at J0053+1234 given in Cohen et al. (1999a). As would be expected from Tables 2 and 3, galaxies whose spectra are dominated by emission lines occupy a different area in this plot than do the galaxies without detectable emission lines. Again as expected, galaxies with strong emission lines are significantly bluer in the rest-frame UV and somewhat bluer in the rest frame optical/near IR, while galaxies with no sign of ongoing star formation are redder in both in the rest frame UV and in the Paschen continuum.

To reinforce this point, a histogram of SED indices with galaxy spectral type for galaxies in the “mid” and “high” redshift range is shown in Figure 8a, 8b.

### 4.2 The Correlation between SED Parameters and Redshift

Table 2 and Table 3 demonstrate a decrease of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ with increasing redshift for $``$ galaxies which is in the expected sense, i.e. higher redshift star forming galaxies appear bluer in the rest frame UV than their local counterparts, probably due to a higher contribution to the total galaxy luminosity from young stars, i.e. a higher mean star formation rates per unit galaxy luminosity. One may also attribute this change to the limited ability of even the sBB model to produce for a fixed galaxy SED a constant value of $`\alpha (UV)`$ as a function of redshift (see figure 4).

However, with the exception noted above, the UV and optical/near IR SED indices ($`\alpha _{UV}`$ and $`\alpha _{IR}`$ or $`T`$) appear to be constant with redshift for each of the three major galaxy spectral classes, $`𝒜,`$, and $``$, to within the uncertainties defined by assuming that the scatter has a Gaussian distribution for the “low”, “mid” and “high” spectral ranges. The CFRS group (Hammer et al. 1997) also found only modest evolution in mean colors with redshift.

The rest frame optical/near IR continua of $``$ galaxies appear to become somewhat redder at high redshift, but this is dependent on the median of $`T`$ or $`\alpha _{IR}`$ for the highest redshift bin. It is not surprising that the $``$ galaxies in the the “highest” redshift range appear to have somewhat redder rest-frame optical continua, as at that point the galaxy spectral classification becomes unreliable, and the $``$ class is a catch-all for a wide range of galaxies. Similar concerns manifest themselves for the highest $`z`$-range in which $`I`$ galaxies could be detected.

This result is equivalent to stating that the association between the spectral indices that characterize the continuum slopes of the median rest frame SED of galaxies and the presence of certain discrete narrow spectral features (i.e. those that define the galaxy spectral classes $`𝒜,`$, and $``$) is roughly invariant out to $`z1.1`$, with the exception that actively star forming galaxies become bluer in the UV at higher redshift.

We can compare the behavior of the SED parameters with redshift with that predicted by Poggianti’s (1997) galaxy evolutionary synthesis models. We apply the same procedure to determine the power law indices to these galaxy models, assuming that her E, Sa, and Sc models correspond roughly to our galaxy spectral classes $`𝒜,,`$. Her elliptical models show SEDs that change little with age, at least to $`z1`$, in accordance with the data shown in Table 2. This corresponds to the well known difficulty of determining the age of an old stellar population from broad band photometry alone.

However, Poggianti’s Sa and Sc models become bluer at all wavelengths within the range of interest more rapidly between $`z0`$ and $`z1`$ than do the galaxy SEDs in our sample. This difference is significantly larger than the uncertainties.

Galaxy evolutionary synthesis calculations involve many theoretical inputs and many assumptions, with only a limited number of constraints applying, mostly at $`z=0`$. One expects that the errors in stellar evolutionary tracks or in our cosmology (i.e. in the relationship between redshift and age) will not be substantial. However, errors in the synthesis models arising from the forms adopted for the star formation rate as a function of time (i.e. at $`z>0.5`$) for the various current galaxy spectral classes may be more serious.

An interesting possibility for a partial explanation is a scenario where as galaxies evolve in time, their SEDs age, and their morphological classifications may also evolve. Van den Bergh, Cohen, Hogg & Blandford (2000), among others, present evidence from an analysis of the morphology of this sample of galaxies on the HDF images taken by HST supporting morphological evolution of galaxies with redshift.

The most likely explanation of this difference between the behavior with redshift of the SED parameters of our sample, divided in spectral classes, and predictions of galaxy evolution models is the star formation rate of a particular model galaxy from Poggianti (1997) varies so much with time out to $`z1.5`$ that as their SEDs age the galaxies will shift between the relatively small number of galaxy spectral classes used here. This is an issue that will be explored in future work.

### 4.3 The Correlation of Luminosity with Color

In Cohen et al. (1999a) we found a tentative relationship between spectral slopes and galaxy luminosity such that more luminous galaxies are redder, suggestive of a continued correspondence at high $`z`$ to the well known galaxy luminosity - mean metallicity relationship shown by early type galaxies in the Local Universe. (See, for example, the discussion of spiral galaxies in Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra 1994, and for the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group see Côté, Oke & Cohen 1999). The large range in star formation rates among galaxies will also contribute to a relationship between SFR and luminosity if most star formation is now occuring within low luminosity galaxies. Such galaxies would then appear bluer than high luminosity more quiescent galaxies (see, e.g. Boselli et al. 2000).

We now examine our much larger data set in the HDF to see if this trend persists. We construct the rest frame optical luminosity using the parameters from the SED fit for each galaxy. For the 2p SED model, we use rest frame $`R`$, while for the sBB model, we use $`L(\lambda _m:\mathrm{red})`$. Even for the highest redshift galaxies in this sample, rest frame $`R`$ lies within the range of the existing broad band photometry, so no extrapolation of the SED is required.

The results are given in Table 4 for the 2p SED model and Table 5 for the sBB SED model. The luminosity characteristic of each redshift range rises with increasing $`z`$ for the redshift range, as is expected since ours is a magnitude limited sample. There is a clear trend of galaxies with redder UV power law indices (larger $`\alpha _{UV}`$) being more luminous in every redshift range except in the highest range, see Figure 9. The increase in median rest frame optical luminosity from the bluest to the reddest galaxies in each redshift range is about a factor of 5.

The same trend is present for the IR power law indices, but the increase is by a smaller factor, about 3, from the bluest to the reddest galaxies.

The highest redshift range behaves anomalously, but that is not surprising, as only the most luminous galaxies can be detected there at such high redshifts, and the depth in luminosity of the sample is small. Furthermore, it is very difficult to assign redshifts beyond $`z1`$ to systems dominated by strong absorption lines, which are the most luminous galaxies in the lower redshift ranges; any such galaxies may be so red as to fall below the $`R`$ cutoff of our sample.

To summarize, the reddest galaxies in both the rest frame UV and optical/near-IR tend to be the most luminous, at least to $`z=1.05`$, after which, such a trend, if present, would be very hard to establish from our sample. For example, of the 25 most luminous (in rest frame $`R`$) galaxies with $`0.25<z<0.8`$, 12 have been assigned to galaxy spectral class $`𝒜`$, but less than 15% of the total sample within that redshift range is assigned to this spectral class.

This is a well established trend in the local Universe, shown clearly in the recent large samples from the SDSS and 2dF surveys analyzed by Blanton et al. (2000) and by Folkes et al. (1999) respectively.

Since this is true in the rest frame optical, the effect will be even larger at rest frame $`K`$, which is a better measure of the true luminosity of the stellar system, unperturbed by contributions from a small number of bright young (blue) stars.

We thus see a picture of quiescent non-star forming galaxies being the most luminous at each $`z`$, while star-forming galaxies are bluer and also in each of the redshift ranges up to $`z1.1`$ have on average significantly lower rest frame optical (and even more so $`K`$) luminosities.

## 5 Properties of the SEDS of the $``$ Galaxies

Our selection of star forming galaxies is complete, in that all objects with strong emission lines are included in the $``$ spectral class. We would see strong emission lines if such were present in any galaxy of any spectral slope with $`z<1.2`$ 444At $`z>1.2`$, the 3727Å emission line of \[OII\] is shifted to 8200Å, where the night sky emission is becoming fierce. At $`z>1.5`$, the line is shifted to the point where the quantum efficiency of most CCD detectors is rapidly declining. if that galaxy fell within our magnitude-limited survey.

### 5.1 The UV SEDs of Starburst Galaxies from $`z0`$ to $`z3`$

Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann (1994), in their study of local starburst galaxies, define the UV extinction in terms of the spectral power law index $`\beta `$ derived for $`f_\lambda `$, where in terms of our UV index $`\alpha _{UV}`$, $`\beta =\alpha _{UV}2.0`$. Their latest calibration of $`\beta `$ versus E($`BV`$) and versus absorption at 1600Å is given in Meurer, Heckman & Calzetti (1999). Their data demonstrate that local starbursts have $`0.5<\alpha _{UV}<+2.5,`$ with a median of $`0.6`$.

There are too few spectroscopically identified starbursts in our sample to examine their SED properties. 555Ignoring the the starburst galaxy at $`z=0.137`$, whose UV spectral index is not reliably determined, the five starbursts spectroscopically identified as such in our sample have a very wide range in $`\alpha _{UV}`$ from 0.1 to 2.7, with a very poorly determined median $`\alpha _{UV}`$ of 0.6. Instead we consider the SED properties of the entire population of $``$ galaxies. Figure 8a shows that for the “mid” and “high” redshift group (as is true also of the other two redshift groups) there is a falloff on the blue side of the distribution of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ at a value of $``$0.6. Moreover both Steidel et al. (1999) and Meurer et al. (1999) find for $`U`$-dropouts at $`z3`$ about the same median $`\beta `$ of $`1.6`$ (corresponding to $`\alpha _{UV}=+0.6`$) and deduce from this a median E($`BV)0.15`$ mag.

While this result was anticipated and is not a surprise, it is by no means one that is guaranteed. The mean starburst SED is not as blue as that of the hottest known stars, but rather represents a sum over a population including some very hot stars. There is no reason beyond our perception of what is logical why a very young galaxy could not have an even bluer UV SED, as do a very small number of local galaxies whose UV light may be dominated by the contribution of a few Wolf-Rayet stars (Sullivan et al. 2000, Brown et al. 2000). The bluest possible galaxy SED would be the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of a population of very hot stars, with $`\alpha _{UV}=2.0`$, much bluer than that of observed galaxies. The mass of the highest mass star in a young population and the nature of the UV SED from a starbursts has been studied theoretically by Elmegreen (2000). He derives colors considerably bluer than observed starburst colors and is forced to introduce a mechanism to produce a cutoff in the upper mass below that expected.

We thus find strong evidence that the most extreme starburst galaxies (i.e. the bluest galaxies in the rest frame UV) have indistinguishable SEDs in the rest frame UV over the entire redshift range $`0<z<3`$.

### 5.2 On the Existence of Highly Reddened Starbursts in Our Sample

We now turn to the nature of the far IR objects observed in the sub-mm regime by SCUBA (Blain et al. 1999, Smail et al. 1999, Lilly et al. 1999, and for the HDF, Hughes et al. 1998), and their relationship to the galaxy populations normally studied at optical wavelengths. We use our SEDs to explore the issue of whether these galaxies might be some tail of the optically detected galaxy population with unusually high internal reddening. Smail et al. (1999), Richards (1999) and Barger, Cowie & Richards (2000), among others, have suggested that these far IR sources represent the tip of a vast iceberg of a separate population of very dusty galaxies at high $`z`$ in which an enormous amount of star formation is occurring and which are invisible at optical wavelengths. Are these SCUBA sources closer to the ULIRGs reviewed by Sanders & Mirabel (1996) or to the redder of the Ly break galaxies already observed at optical wavelengths, as suggested by Adelberger & Steidel (2000) ? Do their presence and numbers imply that it is “useless” to study galaxies in the optical ?

Assuming SCUBA sources are not AGN but rather dusty starbursts, we attempt to isolate galaxies from our sample with a high rate of ongoing star formation most comparable to the galaxies detected with SCUBA. We take the group of galaxies with strong emission lines, i.e. those classified as $``$ as the relevant sample, recognizing that this is a somewhat more diverse group that may contain many galaxies “older” and with less current star formation than those detected by SCUBA or than pure local starburst galaxies. Hence the intrinsic UV power law index of many of these galaxies may be somewhat redder than that of a pure starburst.

Figure 8a suggests for strong emission line galaxies in our sample a continuous distribution of $`\alpha _{UV}`$ peaked at a level slightly redder than that of local starbursts and of $`z3`$ $`U`$-dropouts. There is no obvious second (redder) component, although there may be an extended low level red tail to the distribution. One should, however, note that the distribution in $`\alpha _{UV}`$ shown in figure 8a for the $``$ galaxies includes both $``$ and $``$ galaxies. 666Unless otherwise specified, throughout this paper, a galaxy’s spectral class for purposes of plots and figures is defined only by the first character of its assigned spectral class. When restricted to just $``$ galaxies, the red tail is reduced relative to the blue peak. Furthermore, galaxies in the red tail of this distribution do not seem to have lower luminosities, as would be expected were the red tail due primarily to internal reddening.

This whole issue is related to the nature of the extremely red objects found in deep infrared selected samples. As we have stated earlier (Cohen et al. 1999a and Cohen et al. 2000), see also Scodeggio & Silva (2000), evidence from our redshift surveys suggests that the majority of the EROs in this magnitude regime with with $`RK5`$ to 6 are passively evolving “old” stellar population at $`z1.3`$. While there are undoubtedly some very red very dusty ULIRGs and with extensive star formation similar to the ERO HR10 at $`z=1.44`$ (Dey et al. 1999 and references therein), these appear to be rare.

Our analysis of the SEDs of galaxies with strong emission lines in our $`R`$-selected sample does not provide any evidence that supports the existence a significant “missed” population of dusty galaxies with extensive star formation which might be forming a significant fraction of the stars in the Universe within the regime $`z1.5`$. Dust enshrouded starburst nuclei which do not dominate the total integrated light from a distant galaxy cannot be excluded by our SEDs. However, Moriondo, Cimatti & Daddi (2000) and Stiavelli & Treu (2000) find that HST images of EROs are extremely red not just within the nucleus but over the entire galaxy image.

### 5.3 Prediction of the Mid-IR Flux from the UV Spectral Index

Meurer, Heckman, Calzetti (1999) have provided a formalism for predicting the far IR thermal dust emission from the UV spectral indices of starbursts. They suggest that as the amount of dust increases, the UV spectral index becomes redder and deviates further from the extremely blue power law index characteristic of bare young starbursts. The absorbed UV radiation is then re-emitted by dust in the mid and far infrared. Meurer et al. (1999) give the relevant relationships calibrated by their analysis of local starbursts to predict the emitted flux in the thermal IR from dust.

We attempt to use their formalism to predict which of the galaxies in the region of the HDF should have been detected in the mid-IR by ISO, assuming that a correlation between mid-IR and far-IR emission exists. We employ a ranking scheme to do this, comparing the list of galaxies actually detected by ISO from the analysis of Aussel et al. (1999) with our entire sample. The optical counterparts of the ISO galaxies are discussed and listed in Cohen et al. (2000). Only those with $`R<22.8`$ (i.e. those for which the identification is considered reasonably certain) are included. Since the ISO optical counterparts are of spectral type $``$, $``$ or $`𝒜`$ (Cohen et al. 2000), we also predict the mid-IR flux for the galaxies within our sample of those spectral types (as well the the spectroscopically identified starbursts, which are mostly of too low luminosity to have been detected by ISO) and with $`R<22.8`$.

Because of the correlation between galaxy spectral type and SED indices shown in Tables 2,3 and in Figure 8, a mis-classification of a galaxy to spectral type $``$ which is actually an intermediate spectral type ($``$, $``$ or $``$) will produce a galaxy that appears slightly too red in the rest frame UV, hence seems excessively dusty. The predicted mid-IR flux for such a mis-classified object will be overestimated. This type of classification error should not occur until a galaxy is either very faint or has $`z>0.9`$, where the 4000Å region is shifted into the thicket of night sky lines and it is very hard to distinguish anything except the emission features. Hence the mid-IR luminosity prediction is carried out for the redshift range 0.25 to 1.05, omitting the highest $`z`$ range, where the galaxy spectral types are more uncertain.

There are 12 ISO galaxies with secure optical counterparts in the relevant redshift range. We find the ranking of the 12 ISO galaxies in predicted mid-IR luminosity using the formalism of Muerer et al. within the set of 154 potential optical counterparts from our survey selected as described above. For comparison, we ascertain the rank of the ISO galaxies in the total sample when ordered by $`L(B)`$ or by $`L(R)`$.

Figure 10 shows the rankings of the 12 ISO detected galaxies in this redshift range within the sample of 154 galaxies. A perfect discriminant would have the ISO galaxies occupying ranks 1 through 12. None of the discriminants tried is very good. The results are unchanged when only $``$ galaxies are used. They are also unchanged when a correction to the luminosity for passive evolution is made. The sBB SED model fits were used throughout; the results are unchanged when the 2p fits are used.

The best discriminant appears to be the $`B`$-band luminosity. The mid-IR flux predicted with the algorithm of Meurer et al. (1999) for the galaxies detected by ISO in our sample does not appear to do better overall than either the $`B`$ or $`R`$ band luminosity. While the ISO detections correspond to galaxies which are among the most luminous (using any of the three definitions of luminosity given above), there are still many galaxies of comparable luminosity that were not detected by ISO. The formalism of Meurer et al. (1999) does not significantly reduce this problem. One should note, however, that this formalism was developed to explain the far-IR emission of galaxies where thermal emission from dust dominates. At a typical redshift of 0.6, the 15$`\mu `$ ISO bandpass corresponds to 9.4$`\mu `$ in the rest frame. The majority of the ISO detections were in the 7$`\mu `$ band, where, in the rest frame for these distant galaxies, dust emission does not dominate the total emitted galaxy light.

## 6 Comments on Photometric Redshifts

Photometric redshifts have become very popular recently; see, for example, Connolly et al. (1997) or Fernandez-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil (1999). As our blind tests (Hogg et al. 1998, Cohen et al. 2000) have shown, these are capable of accurately predicting the true redshift of an object in essentially all cases with the excellent photometry that one can obtain from deep HST images. But many wide area ground based surveys plan to use photometric redshifts for various purposes, and one might be concerned that the limitations of ground based photometry for such faint objects will reduce the accuracy of the resulting photometric redshifts beyond a tolerable level.

There are two problems here, both becoming worse as one presses fainter. The first is the impact of crowding while the second is the decreasing accuracy of the photometry itself for isolated fainter objects. We can assess the influence of the former in that even with very careful hand checking of all objects in our sample in the region of the HDF and with images with 1 arcsec seeing, we could not obtain believable SEDs for about 25 of 590 objects because of crowding. 777The number of galaxies without reliable SEDs given in §3.8 includes galaxies with no observation at $`K`$ as well as those suffering from crowding. Almost all of these objects have $`R>22`$. That error rate in a massive non-manually checked catalog at this magnitude level would be larger and would further increase by a large factor for a catalog with a fainter limiting magnitude or poorer seeing conditions. The influence of confusion on photometry is discussed by Hogg (2000). Even in the HDF itself, our survey still operates at a level in excess of 60 resolution elements per source.

The 4000Å break is the dominant feature in the spectra of galaxies in this redshift range. 888We ignore the higher redshift range where the Ly break dominates and where the decline in flux across the boundary is more than a factor of 10, but the objects are in general fainter than the range considered here of $`R<24`$. If the photometric errors are such that it is impossible to discern the presence of the break, assignment of a photo-$`z`$ becomes problematic at best.

We can test with each of our two fitting models whether a 4000 Å break is measurable. In the case of the 2p SED model, we require that we can detect $`\alpha _{IR}\alpha _{UV}`$, which is a broad band change in continnuum slope, as non-zero, while the sBB model permits direct measurement of the 4000 Å break.

Our criterion for detectability for the 4000 Å break in the sBB SED model is that $`L(\lambda _m,\mathrm{red})\mathrm{L}(\lambda _\mathrm{m},\mathrm{blue})0.05`$ dex (corresponding to a 4000 Å break of $``$0.13 mag). For the 2p model, we require that $`|(\alpha _{IR}\alpha _{UV})|/\sigma 1.5`$, where $`\sigma `$ is determined from the fitting procedure and is based on the observed brightness of the object, the number of filters used to determine the SED, and the redshift of the object.

We find the number of galaxies in each redshift range for which, with the definitions given above, the detection of a 4000 Å break is problematical. This fraction is less than 20% for galaxies with $`z<0.8`$, but rises to more than 30% above $`z0.8`$. While the overall fraction of galaxies without detectable 4000 Å breaks is approximately the same for the two SED models, the behavior of galaxies of spectral class $`𝒜`$, in particular, depends on the fitting scheme adopted. In the 2p model, essentially all such galaxies have easily detectable breaks, while in the more detailed sBB model, they have small 4000 Å break, but still display substantial changes in overall spectral slope between the rest frame UV and optical. In any case, there is clearly a significant population of galaxies, consisting predominantly of those with strong emission lines, that do not have a detectable 4000Å break or Balmer jump. For such galaxies, adding IR photometry will not help in providing a valid photometric redshift. Only higher precision photometry, difficult to achieve from the ground for such faint objects, will help.

Brunner, Szalay & Connolly (2000) have discussed this issue at length as it affects their study of galaxy clustering, which uses photometric redshifts to divide a pencil beam survey into several redshift shells, thus avoiding the projection integral. Their particular application is eased by the fact that, as shown by Hogg, Cohen & Blandford (2000), throughout this range in $`z`$ most of the clustering signal is from the redder early type galaxies, which will yield reasonably accurate photo-$`z`$s under any appropriate scheme.

## 7 A Qualitative View of the Evolution of $`L^{}(K)`$

We show in Figure 11 the rest frame $`K`$-band luminosity $`L(K)`$ calculated from the sBB parameters of the SED fits as a function of cosmological comoving volume. The issue of K-corrections has been avoided through the use of multi-color photometry spanning a broad wavelength range. However, extrapolation beyond the reddest observations (i.e. trusting the functional form of the model SEDs) is required to obtain rest frame $`K`$ magnitudes for galaxies in this sample, with the largest extrapolation required for the highest $`z`$ galaxies.

The rationale for studying galaxies at $`K`$ is that the integrated light there is much more representative of the total stellar mass of a galaxy than are the optical colors, where light from the most recent epoch of star formation may dominate over that from the older population as one moves towards the ultraviolet. To convert these $`K`$ luminosities for the galaxies in our sample into total stellar masses of the galaxies requires a model of evolving galaxy spectral energy distributions to evaluate their mass-to-light ratio as a function of look back time and of their star formation history. We use the evolutionary corrections from the models of Poggianti (1997), and interpret her E, Sa and Sc galaxy classes as roughly equivalent to our galaxy spectral types $`𝒜`$, $``$ and $``$. The lines in Figure 11 thus indicate the predicted track of a galaxy of constant mass from Poggianti for the three mophological galaxy classes. As expected, the evolutionary change in luminosity at $`K`$ predicted by Poggianti is quite small and much less dependent on the details of the star formation history (i.e. of the galaxy spectral class) than are those predicted at $`B`$ or $`R`$. These tracks, which include passive stellar evolution for the elliptical, are at rest frame $`K`$ a good representation of the evolution of at least the most luminous galaxies in our sample.

Recent determinations of $`L^{}(K)`$ in the local Universe correspond to $`L^{}(K)=8\times 10^{36}`$ W (Gardner et al. 1997, Loveday 1999, and from the combination of the 2dF and 2MASS survey, Cole et al. 2000). The passive evolution model lines are shown with this luminosity (at $`z=0`$), equivalent to $`1.3\times 10^{11}L_{}`$ at $`K`$. For elliptical galaxies, using the mass-to-light ratio at $`K`$ for local ellipticals computed by Worthey (1994), this is a galaxy with a total mass of $`1\times 10^{11}M_{}`$. The mass-to-light ratio of Sb galaxies is smaller, by about a factor of 2.

Figure 11 suggests, as has been evident from our work on spatial clustering in this field, that luminous nearby ($`z0.3`$) galaxies are absent in this field. That is presumably a result of the selection criteria for defining the HDF adopted by Williams et al. (1996).

Figure 11 also shows the gradual increasing mean luminosity of star forming galaxies (our spectral class $``$) to $`z1`$, and the increasing dominance of such galaxies as a fraction of the total observed population, an effect found previously with smaller samples by many groups, including Cowie et al. (1996), Hammer et al. (1997) and Hogg et al. (1998). There are some selection effects, as discussed many times in the earlier papers in this series, namely faint objects have a lower probability of being assigned a redshift unless they have very strong emission lines and the same is true for galaxies with $`z>1`$. However, the redshift completeness of our sample is very high, in excess of 93%.

A formal analysis of the galaxy luminosity functions will follow in the next paper in this series. Once the evolution of $`L^{}`$ is properly determined, then subject to the accuracy of Poggianti’s (1997) predicted evolutionary corrections at rest frame $`K`$ and to the uncertainties in the extrapolation of our SEDs beyond the range in wavelength over which photometry exists, one can evaluate the change in the total stellar mass of $`L^{}`$ galaxies. This can then be used to provide another constraint on the rate of massive mergers out to $`z1`$; Carlberg et al. (2000) has already provided one such constraint through an analysis of the kinematic pairs in our sample.

## 8 Summary

In this paper we have evaluated the spectral energy distributions for a sample of 590 galaxies in the region of the HDF with $`z<1.5`$ using a new versatile and stable SED model. This has been done directly from the data using multi-color photometry with wide wavelength coverage combined with spectroscopic redshifts from our 93% complete $`R`$-selected redshift survey here. The behavior of the SEDs with galaxy spectral type (i.e. “recent” star formation history) and with redshift confirms the trends found in our earlier studies of smaller samples; galaxies with strong signs of recent star formation (i.e. those which show emission lines) have bluer continuum slopes in both the rest frame UV and the optical/near-infrared. The most luminous galaxies tend to be of galaxy spectral class $`𝒜`$ at a rate much higher than their fraction in the total sample, i.e. the redder galaxies tend to be more luminous. In the mean, actively star forming galaxies become bluer in the rest-frame UV at higher redshifts, which may perhaps be due to systematic redshift dependent fitting errors for $`\alpha (UV)`$. We see no other change with redshift in the relationship between SED characteristics and galaxy spectral type defined by the presence and strength of narrow emission and absorption features to $`z1.1`$.

We use these SEDs to evaluate the potential accuracy of photometric redshifts, bearing in mind that a break at 4000Å must be detectable to within the errors of the photometry to assign a photo-$`z`$ for galaxies in this redshift regime. We also use them to demonstrate that the SEDs in the rest frame UV of the the most extreme starburst galaxies (i.e. the bluest $``$ galaxies) are indistinguishable SEDs from those of local starbursts as analyzed by Calzetti, Kinney & Storchi-Bergmann (1994) and from those of the Ly break galaxies at $`z3`$ studied by Steidel et al. (1999) and by Meurer et al. (1999).

We also attempt to set constraints on the possible existence of a separate class of dusty starburst galaxies and on the variation from galaxy to galaxy within a galaxy spectral class of internal reddening using these SED indices. Finally we use the UV spectral indices of all the strong emission line galaxies to predict which of them should have been detected by ISO in the mid-IR, which exercise was only modestly successful.

We conclude by presenting the rest frame $`K`$-band luminosity as a function of $`z`$. We see the effect of selecting a field (i.e. the HDF) to be devoid of bright galaxies. We see encouraging overall consistency with predictions of evolutionary corrections for the rest frame $`L(K)`$ computed from models of integrated light of galaxies by Poggianti (1997). We see the gradual change in the population of various types of galaxies, with star forming galaxies becoming both a larger fraction of the total population and more luminous as one moves toward $`z1`$. The overall pattern of the $`L(K)z`$ relationship suggests that passive evolution at constant total stellar mass is a good approximation to the actual behavior of at least the most luminous galaxies in this large sample of galaxies in the region of the HDF out to $`z1.5`$, an issue which will be explored in depth in the next paper in this series.

The entire Keck/LRIS user community owes a huge debt to Jerry Nelson, Gerry Smith, Bev Oke, and many other people who have worked to make the Keck Telescope and LRIS a reality. We are grateful to the W. M. Keck Foundation, and particularly its late president, Howard Keck, for the vision to fund the construction of the W. M. Keck Observatory. We thank Roger Blandford, David Hogg and Gerry Neugebauer for helpful discussions. We thank Amy Barger and Len Cowie for access to their unpublished photometric database for the region of the HDF. We thank Robert Brunner for supplying filter transmission curves. We thank two anonymous referees for constructive criticism of the manuscript. This work was not supported by any federal agency.

## Appendix A Updates to the Redshift Catalog in the Region of the HDF

We present in Tables 6a,b redshifts obtained since November 1999 for objects in the region of the HDF. This is new, additional material which supplements that presented in Cohen et al. (2000). The galaxy spectral classes and redshift quality classes used here are those defined in Cohen et al. (1999a). Table 6a contains information for 53 objects in the Flanking Fields and is based exclusively on our LRIS (Oke et al. 1995) observations at the Keck Observatory during the winter of 2000. Emphasis in planning the observations was on galaxies with $`23.0<R<23.5`$.

Table 6b contains the additional redshifts for five objects in the HDF itself, some of which is from other groups as indicated in the table.

Combining this new material with the data presented in Cohen et al. (2000), the redshift completeness in the HDF itself to $`R<24`$ is now 95%, while that in the Flanking Fields around to within the survey area of Cohen et al. is in excess of 93% to $`R<23`$.

The SED parameters for these new galaxies with $`z<1.5`$ for which reliable SEDs are given in Table 7a,b.

In addition, three redshifts from the catalog of Cohen et al. (2000) are being changed. The spectral features which led to the redshift assignment given in our catalog in each case are real, but the identification assigned to them has been modified. Based on a suggestion from Mark Dickinson (private communication), the same suggestion subsequently being made by Fernandez-Soto et al. (2000), and after looking at the relevant spectra, the redshift of H36396\_1230 has been changed. What in hindsight should have been recognized as an obvious Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line was previously identified as the Mg II line at 2800Å. The redshifts of H36494\_1316 and H36560\_1329 are also being modified to identify the single emission line as \[OII\] 3727Å instead of H$`\alpha `$ to be in conformance with the rules stated in earlier papers in this series regarding redshifts from spectra showing only single emission lines and also based on the photometric redshift/spectroscopic redshift discrepancy discussed by Fernandez-Soto et al.. If these rules had been followed in all 3 cases, no modifications would have been necessary. The corrections are listed in Table 8. The SEDs have been calculated using the updated values.

Finally, the magnitude given for H36453\_1153 in Cohen et al. (2000) is too bright. There are several faint objects close together which are clearly resolved in the HST image, but only one entry appears in the H00 photometric catalog. The object with the spectroscopic redshift is the $`U`$-dropout, and instead of $`R=22.53`$, the value given in Cohen et al. (2000), a better estimate for this galaxy is $`R23.3`$.

## Appendix B Effective Wavelengths of the Filters

The effective wavelength of the $`K_s`$ (short $`K`$) filter is taken as 2.17$`\mu `$ with an absolute flux at 0 mag of log\[$`\nu f_\nu `$\] = $``$9.01 W m-2 (M.Pahre, private communication). Persson et al. (1998) also discuss the effective wavelengths of various infrared photometric systems. The effective wavelengths of the other three filters in the H00 database ($`U_n`$, $`G_n`$ and $`R`$) are given by Steidel & Hamilton (1993). The Barger et al. (1998) database consists of at least six colors, five of which are on the Johnson system, and hence their effective wavelengths can be taken from standard sources; we adopt those of Fukugita, Shimasaku & Ichikawa (1995). The notched H$`K^{}`$ filter is described in Barger et al. (1998); see also Wainscoat & Cowie (1992). The galaxy measurements at $`HK^{}`$ were transformed to a standard Johnson $`K`$ using the relationship $`K=HK^{}0.3`$ given by Barger et al. (1998).

## Appendix C Details of the SED Fitting Procedures

Here we describe the details of the fitting procedures, and how the flux at the transition wavelength is handled.

For the 2p SED, the power law was fit first to the side (blue or red) of rest frame 4000Å which had the most observed points; this depended on the redshift of the object and the number of filters for which data actually exists. A linear least squares fitting routine from Press et al. (1986) was used. Once one index was determined, the second spectral index is calculated assuming forced agreement in the value of $`L_\nu `$ at 4000Å.

For the sBB SED model, the fitting is accomplished with routines from Press et al.(1986). The fitting rules are as follows. If there are 4 or more filter bands observed on the red side and 3 or more on the blue side, then the regimes $`\lambda <\lambda _m`$ and $`\lambda >\lambda _m`$ are fit independently. If there are fewer than four on the red side, then the blue side is fit first. A point is then added to the red side at $`\lambda _m`$ with the luminosity there that calculated from the blue fit. Then the red fit is done. If there are fewer than three on the blue side, then the red side fit is done first, and a point is added to the blue side at $`\lambda _m`$ with the value predicted from the sBB fit.


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# Circumnuclear kinematics in NGC 5248: the origin of nuclear spiral arms

## 1 MOTIVATION

During the past 40 years considerable progress has been made in understanding the origin, nature and influence of spiral structure in disc galaxies. The most commonly accepted theories now include the density wave theory (Lin & Shu 1964; Lin, Yuan & Shu 1969) and its modal version (Bertin et al. 1989a,b), which can generate spiral structures from about 1 kpc to the outskirts of the disc. If dynamical (Lindblad) resonances exist, the spiral structure in the collisionless stellar component is permitted to exist between the inner and outer resonances. The dissipative gas component is not subject to these boundary conditions. Therefore, gaseous spiral structure may extend to much smaller spatial scales.

The lack of spatial resolution both in observations and numerical models of disc galaxies has hitherto hampered the study of spiral structure in the central regions. The advent of near-infrared (NIR) and optical imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and adaptive optics (AO) on 4-meter class ground-based telescopes is now breaking the resolution barrier, allowing us to resolve galaxies within about 15 Mpc down to scales of 10 pc or less. One of the main results from the increasing resolving power has been the discovery of nuclear spirals (e.g., Ford et al. 1994; Rouan et al. 1998; Phillips et al. 1996; Grillmair et al. 1997; Devereux, Ford & Jacoby 1997; Dopita et al. 1997; Elmegreen et al. 1998; Carollo, Stiavelli & Mack 1998; Malkan, Gorjian & Tam 1998; Laine et al. 1999; Regan & Mulchaey 1999; Martini & Pogge 1999). At the same time, the availability of powerful computers allows us to create detailed numerical models which can resolve the spiral structure down to 1–10 pc scales (e.g., Englmaier & Shlosman 2000).

As an example of the recent breakthroughs, Laine et al. (1999) reported the first detection of grand-design nuclear spiral structure on scales of a few hundred pc in the nuclear region of the spiral galaxy NGC 5248. In fact, spiral structure exists in this galaxy on at least four different spatial scales, extending from the few hundred pc scale minispiral to the 10 kpc scale weak, outer arms. In between, there are the classical optically bright spiral arms, and at the inner end of these, but outside the circumnuclear starburst ring, red spiral arms which are seen in NIR colour index maps. These arms are reminiscent of the dust lanes often found along galactic bars. Since our discovery of grand-design nuclear spiral arms, a few more have been found, e.g., by Martini & Pogge (1999; UGC 12138 and NGC 7682). A few galaxies in the sample of Regan & Mulchaey (1999) possess nuclear spiral dust lanes reminiscent of grand-design spirals.

Spiral patterns in the nuclear region can be formed by at least three processes. First, a spiral density wave mode can grow in the inner disc. In this case, the spiral density wave can exist between the Lindblad resonances corresponding to the spiral pattern speed. Such a wave would be formed by long wavelength density waves in the stellar and gaseous component. To avoid perturbations from the dynamically independent spiral pattern at larger scales, the nuclear spiral pattern must exist inside the inner Lindblad resonance (ILR) of the outer spiral pattern, thus requiring a much higher pattern speed for the nuclear spiral pattern. Second, the spiral pattern can be driven by the outer spiral pattern, as described and modelled by Englmaier & Shlosman (2000). In this case, the potential well must be shallow enough to prevent the spiral from becoming too tightly wound and destroyed by dissipation. The pattern speeds of the large and nuclear spirals are equal. Finally, the nuclear spiral may be formed by an acoustic instability (Elmegreen et al. 1998), but this leads to irregular spiral patterns with multiple arms.

We have obtained high resolution (0.9 arcsec), two-dimensional line of sight velocity data for the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 5248. In the following sections we discuss the similarities and differences between the H$`\alpha `$ morphology and kinematics in the core regions of NGC 5248 and M100, and use the kinematical data, in conjunction with the earlier high resolution NIR colour index image (Laine et al. 1999), to obtain estimates of the pattern speed of the nuclear spiral and the sound speed of the ISM.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

We used the TAURUS II instrument in Fabry–Pérot (FP) mode on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma during the nights of 1998 September 2 and 3. We windowed the TEK2 CCD camera to a size of $`600\times 600`$ pixels with a scale of 0.28 arcsec pixel-1. The nights were photometric with sub-arcsecond seeing. We used the appropriately redshifted narrow-band H$`\alpha `$ filter ($`\lambda _\mathrm{c}`$=6589Å, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$=15Å, using the galaxy’s systemic velocity $`v_{\mathrm{sys}}`$=1153 km s-1; NED) as an order-sorting filter. We performed wavelength and phase calibration by observing a calibration lamp before and after each science exposure. We subtracted the background sky value from each separate plane, and shifted the planes to the same position using fits to foreground stars. This produced two data cubes of $`300\times `$ 300 pixels $`\times `$ 55 ‘planes’ in wavelength, separated by 0.414 Å, or 18.9 km s-1.

We combined the two individual datasets by placing the two cubes at the same grid position using fits to the positions of foreground stars in the original cubes and averaging the individual planes in the data cubes. Astrometry was performed by comparing the position of a bright foreground star to its position in the HST Guide Star Catalog.

We determined which channels of the dataset were free of H$`\alpha `$ line emission after smoothing the data cube to a resolution of 4 arcsec $`\times `$ 4 arcsec. Subsequently, we subtracted the continuum emission after fitting the continuum to the 24 line-free channels in the data cube. The H$`\alpha `$ emission as a function of increasing wavelength, or velocity, is shown in a way equivalent to the standard channel maps in radio astronomy in Fig. 1. Only the circumnuclear area is shown, including the starburst ring.

We have performed both a Gaussian fitting of the spectra in the cube and a moment analysis in the central region of NGC 5248. We choose to display the moment maps here after comparing them to the map made by fitting Gaussians, because the first moment map shows smoother velocity contours than the velocity map derived by Gaussian fitting. We also made sure that the fitted spectra were symmetrical and single-valued. The resulting moment 0 map (H$`\alpha `$ emission distribution) is shown in Fig. 2. After smoothing the data cube to 2.5 arcsec spatial resolution, we created another set of moment maps. The resulting smoothed velocity field is shown in Fig. 3. The detailed procedure used to produce the moment maps is described in Knapen (1997) and Knapen et al. (2000).

## 3 RESULTS

### 3.1 H$`\alpha `$ distribution

The dominating feature in the H$`\alpha `$ distribution of Fig. 2 is the circumnuclear ring with a major axis diameter of 14 arcsec. An HST image of this ring (Maoz et al. 1996) shows that it consists of several tightly-packed ‘super star clusters’. Our H$`\alpha `$ image shows that inside the ring at about 1 arcsec radius another pseudo-ring encircles the nucleus. This pseudo-ring is probably associated with the dusty nuclear grand-design spiral (Laine et al. 1999). However, a detailed comparison with the dust spiral is not possible because of the spatial resolutions that differ by almost a factor of 10. We note, however, that the emission is clumpy, and that there is an apparent break in the north side of both the main ring and the nuclear pseudo-ring. Since no reliable measures of the two-dimensional distribution of extinction are available, we are unable to say whether such a break corresponds to an asymmetric distribution of dust. Assuming that the spiral arms in NGC 5248 are trailing, and considering that the southwest side of the ring is receding with respect to the systemic velocity (see Section 3.2), the north-eastern side of the ring will be the far side if the ring is in the plane of the main galaxy disc. Therefore, the optical depth may be larger in the northern side, which would lead to weaker observed emission.

The most intense peaks of H$`\alpha `$ emission occur near the major axis, towards southeast and northwest, and also on the minor axis towards southwest. This situation is reminiscent of the morphology found in M100 by Knapen et al. 2000. They found peaks near the major and minor axis of the ring and argued that these locations represent regions of crowding of the gas orbits in the vicinity of the inner inner Lindblad resonance (IILR).

Outside the circumnuclear ring, most of the detected emission comes from the northern section of the main spiral arm, which is also bright in the optical broad-band images of NGC 5248. Since we are mostly interested in the circumnuclear region, we will not discuss the detected H$`\alpha `$ emission coming from the main optical spiral arms any further.

### 3.2 H$`\alpha `$ kinematics

Figure 3 shows the velocity field of the nuclear region of NGC 5248, smoothed to a resolution of 2.5 arcsec. The regular velocity contours in the Figure indicate a relatively undisturbed velocity field without any strong noncircular streaming motions. The velocity contours in the first moment image are closing on both sides of the nucleus, implying that the rotation curve is declining. To study the significance of noncircular (e.g., streaming) motions, we made an image showing the difference between our best fitting purely circular rotation model (see Section 4) and the observed velocity field. The resulting image is shown in Figure 4. The largest regions of noncircular motion have amplitudes of around 30 km s-1 (in the north-eastern corner) and 15 – 20 km s-1 towards south and west. Deprojected, these velocities correspond to deviations from pure circular motions with a magnitude up to 50 km s-1. The regions towards the northeast and west coincide with areas where spiral arms, coming in from the outer disc, merge with the circumnuclear ring, and therefore they could indicate the motions of gas coming in to the ring along the spiral arms. Indeed, if we assume that the spiral arms are trailing, the northeastern side of the galaxy is the far side, and negative residual velocities on that side mean inflow, whereas the positive residual velocities towards the west also imply inflow. This is consistent with the kinematical density wave theory which predicts inward streaming motions along the spiral arms inside the corotation resonance (Rohlfs 1977). This claim is supported by the smoothed (to 2.5 arcsec) second moment map (Fig. 5) which shows increased velocity dispersions in two regions labelled ‘A’ and ‘B’ in Figure 5. These two regions closely coincide with the peak noncircular motions in Fig. 4 and with the peak H$`\alpha `$ intensity.

The lack of systematic noncircular streaming motions is strikingly different from what was found in M100 (Knapen et al. 2000). There, characteristic S-shaped contours of constant velocities were explained with the help of the (nuclear) bar and additional velocity components indicating streaming motions near the spiral armlets. An S-shaped signature is not recognizable in Fig. 3, most likely because bars in NGC 5248 are absent or weak (not recognized on images). However, there is a hint of streaming motions connected with the incoming arms, as discussed above, towards west-southwest at about 10 arcsec radius and perhaps towards east-northeast at a comparable radius. The physical sense of these deviations was discussed above. Therefore, the incoming spiral arms are most likely part of a grand-design density wave system and not flocculent spiral arms.

The rotation curve was made from the unsmoothed data (with 0.9 arcsec resolution) to avoid smoothing out the rise near the nucleus. We followed the procedure of tilted ring fitting described by Begeman (1989). We used only points within 60 of the kinematical major axis (to ignore radial motions which are best seen near the kinematical minor axis) and cosine $`\theta `$ weighting (where $`\theta `$ is the azimuthal distance from the kinematical major axis in the plane of the galaxy). We fixed the inclination at 50, the position angle at 120, the systemic velocity at 1125 km s-1, and the position of the centre at R.A. (J2000.0) = 13h 37m 32$`\stackrel{s}{.}`$05, Dec. (J2000.0) = 8°53′7$`\stackrel{}{.}`$02, all obtained from runs in which the parameter in question was left as a free parameter. The rotation curve itself is shown in Figure 7, where the distances have been converted into parsecs, assuming that 1 arcsec = 75 pc (obtained using a distance of 15 Mpc, which in turn was obtained from the Hubble law with $`H_0`$ = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1).

The rotation curve shows a relatively shallow rise, which is spatially clearly resolved. The peak rotation velocity occurs at about 145 km s-1 at 7 arcsec or 0.55 kpc distance from the centre and then the rotation velocity starts a gradual decline. The shallow rise in NGC 5248 is in sharp contrast to the rotation curve derived for M100 from similar Fabry–Perot observations by Knapen et al. (2000), which most likely implies a smaller mass in the central region of NGC 5248 compared to M100. There are hints that a shallow rise in the rotation curve may be directly related to the presence of nuclear spiral arms (Knapen, Laine & Relaño 1999). No recently observed large-scale rotation curve is available for comparison with the kinematic behaviour of the large-scale disk of NGC 5248.

In order to obtain an estimate for the pattern speed of the spiral, we generated an analytical model using the description of Englmaier & Shlosman (2000). The following section gives a detailed description of the modeling.

## 4 MODEL FOR THE NUCLEAR SPIRAL

Recently, Englmaier & Shlosman (2000) calculated analytical models, based on the density wave theory, for nuclear spiral structure which is an extension of the main spiral structure of a disc galaxy, inwards of the dynamical inner Lindblad resonances (ILRs) which typically occur in the inner kiloparsec of a galaxy. The main free parameters in the models are the pattern speed of the spiral (or bar) and the sound speed of the interstellar medium (ISM), where the sound speed is a measure of the turbulent kinematic motions. Cowie (1980) has shown that this approach, which is wide-spread in the literature, is in fact a fair description of the ISM. Any given combination of those two parameters, together with a specified rotation curve (or mass distribution) will produce a model with a unique run of the spiral pitch angle. To test this theory in the context of a grand-design nuclear spiral galaxy, we have used the imaging data from Laine et al. (1999; Figure 6) and the kinematical data from the current paper to investigate whether the pattern speed of the nuclear spiral is consistent with the pattern speed of the main spiral structure at larger radii, and whether the sound speed of the ISM is close to the values measured at radii larger than 1 kpc in disc galaxies (typically $``$ 10 km s-1). Since the contrast of the observed dusty spiral arm pattern to its background is extremely low (0.05 mag in the $`JK`$ image of Laine et al. 1999), we assume that the mass of the nuclear spiral is very small and thus the self-gravity of the spiral arm can be neglected in our models.

To compare the density wave theory prediction with our kinematical (current paper) and morphological (Laine et al. 1999) observations, we calculated the pitch angle of the spiral arms as a function of radius in two ways. First, we measured the pitch angle by eye-ball fitting a logarithmic spiral at the radii where the pattern is well defined (from about 1.8 arcsec to 3.4 arcsec). Second, we computed the phase angle for the $`m=2`$ mode as a function of radius. While the former method concentrated on fitting the dark dust lanes, the latter method tried to fit a sine curve to the azimuthal variation of the spiral in the $`JK`$ colour index image. The eye-ball fits were in agreement with the $`m`$=2 phase angle but less reliable. Therefore, in the following we only use the latter fit. From the fitted phase angle we computed the pitch angle $`i(r)`$ shown in Fig. 9 by the solid line with filled dots. While we can recognize a grand-design spiral between 0.13 and 0.25 kpc, a few perturbations are visible as waves in the $`i(r)`$ curve. At larger radii the spiral is lost in noise, while at smaller radii the emission is dominated by the central bulge-like component. As can been seen in Fig. 9, the pitch angle is in good agreement with the theoretical prediction for all the considered fits to the rotation curve data (the three model curves in Fig. 9).

To calculate the density wave theory prediction we made a non-parametric fit to the H$`\alpha `$ velocity data using the Wahba & Wendelberger method (Wahba & Wendelberger 1980; Arnaboldi et al. 1998). With this algorithm we minimize the quantity

$$\xi =\mathrm{N}^1\underset{\mathrm{i}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{N}}{}}(𝐋_\mathrm{i}v\stackrel{~}{v}_\mathrm{i})\sigma _\mathrm{i}^2+\lambda P(v),$$
(1)
where N is the number of data points, $`\stackrel{~}{v}_\mathrm{i}`$ is the measured rotation velocity of the ith data point and $`\sigma _\mathrm{i}`$ is its measurement error. The linear operator $`𝐋`$ decribes the Gaussian seeing. The resulting intrinsic velocity field is represented by $`v`$; $`𝐋v`$ is the field as it would be observed with Gaussian seeing. Therefore the first term of $`\xi `$ is a $`\chi ^2`$ in the observational space. The second term of $`\xi `$ is a regularising functional in intrinsic space which prevents artificial amplification of noise in the solution. The smoothing parameter $`\lambda `$ was determined using a Fourier analysis of the recovered intrinsic velocity field.

The advantage of this method is that the result is not biased towards a prescribed model. Individual errors in the rotation curve were taken into account. Figure 7 shows three such model fits. The first fit (long-dashed line) ignores the inner two points which are affected by the limited spatial resolution. The other two fits were obtained using all the data points but also taking into account a Gaussian-type point spread function corresponding to 0.9 arcsec seeing. Figure 7 shows the intrinsic rotation curves convolved with the Gaussian seeing functional with a low smoothing (solid line) and a higher smoothing (dotted curve). Both are consistent with the Fourier-determined smoothing parameter. From the intrinsic rotation curve, we calculated the linear resonance diagram shown in Fig. 8. The use of a linear resonance diagram in this galaxy is justified because a nonaxisymmetric bar perturbation in this galaxy is relatively weak. Since the calculation of the epicyclic frequency $`\kappa `$ requires the first derivative of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, small bumps in the rotation curve are amplified in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }\kappa /2`$ curve (or ‘ILR curve’). With enough smoothing allowed in the Wahba & Wendelberger method fit, we obtained a smooth ILR curve without any bumps (see Fig. 8, solid and dotted curves). Since the locations of ILRs are defined to be the radii where the ILR curves cross the bar/spiral pattern speed, the ILR curves in Fig. 8 are consistent with only one ILR inside the one at 1.2 kpc found by Patsis, Grosbøl & Hiotelis (1997), because the ILR curves rise inwards of 1.2 kpc and then dip only once to a feasible bar pattern speed value ($`<`$ 20 km s-1). There may be another ILR inside of 0.15 kpc but the spiral also disappears there. Therefore, the use of the nuclear spiral theory developed by Englmaier & Shlosman (2000) is justified.

Finally, we computed the wave number $`k`$ for the $`m`$ = 2 mode from the linearized dispersion relation of non-self-gravitating gaseous discs embedded in an external frozen potential:

$$(2\mathrm{\Omega }(r)2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{P})^2=\kappa ^2+k^2v_\mathrm{s}^2$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)=v/r`$ is the circular velocity, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{P}`$ the pattern speed, and $`v_\mathrm{s}`$ the sound speed. Note that near a Lindblad resonance the dispersion relation is not applicable and formally the wave number becomes zero. The wave number can then be used to derive the pitch angle $`i`$

$$\mathrm{tan}i=|\frac{2}{kr}|,$$
(3)
which will be independent of time.

The resulting pitch angle depends on only two fit parameters: the pattern speed and the sound speed $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ (Fig. 9). For the fit without the two innermost points, the pitch angle stays mostly constant over the radii where the spiral is observed. However, for fits which take all the points and the point spread function into account, the spiral opens up closer to the centre, i.e., the pitch angle increases rapidly. The best agreement with the observed pitch angle was obtained when the sound speed was within a narrow range of (9–16 km s-1), regardless of the inclusion or not of the innermost two data points in the rotation curve or smoothing, and assuming that the pattern speed (20 km s-1 kpc-1, which after correcting for our distance of 15.4 Mpc instead of 10.5 Mpc as used by Patsis et al. becomes 13 km s-1 kpc-1) found by Patsis et al. (1997) for the outer spiral also holds for the nuclear spiral. Inside 1.5 arcsec (or 110 pc) the predicted pitch angle depends strongly on the amount of smoothing applied and on how the two innermost data points are treated.

## 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

As recent high spatial resolution observations have shown, nuclear spiral structure is abundant and at least in some cases takes on the morphology of grand-design spiral arms (Laine et al. 1999; Martini & Pogge 1999; Regan & Mulchaey 1999). Therefore, it is important to understand how such organized structures can survive in the circumnuclear region where the dynamical time scales are much shorter than in the outer disc. While flocculent spiral arms may be explained with the help of the acoustic instabilities (Elmegreen et al. 1998), grand-design structure may only form either in an independent, rapidly rotating component inside the inner ILR, or as a gaseous extension of the outer spiral structure, thus forming part of the overall spiral pattern that stretches from a few hundred pc scale up to several kpc. We can distinguish between the latter two possibilities by measuring the pattern speed of the nuclear spiral structure. NGC 5248 is a natural candidate for such a study.

In this paper we have shown that the circumnuclear velocity field of NGC 5248 is mostly regular, consistent with circular rotation, but inflow motion with amplitude up to 50 km s-1 is seen near the points where the outer spiral arms merge with the ring. Additional velocity perturbations are seen at the minor axis, but only on one side of the galaxy. The peak H$`\alpha `$ emission areas occur on the major axis and on the minor axis, similarly to what was observed in M100. In contrast to M100, however, we do not see any systematic large-scale streaming motions which could be associated with a nuclear bar or tightly wound nuclear spirals. Bar streaming motions are probably absent because there is no obvious bar in NGC 5248 at any observed spatial scale. The absence of streaming motions in the ring may mean that the character of the ring is different from that of M100, which possesses tightly-wound pseudo-spirals that form a ring-like feature. Alternatively, it may reflect evolutionary and possibly even age differences in the circumnuclear rings.

We have also shown that the nuclear grand-design spiral structure may be driven by one spiral pattern rotating at the same speed and extending from scales of about 100 pc to several kiloparsecs. Galaxy structures which rotate with the same pattern speed over a factor of ten in radial distance have been seen before in barred spiral galaxies, where the bar and its associated ring system rotate with the same pattern speed (e.g., ESO 507–16; Byrd, Ousley & Dalla Piazza 1998). Our model for the spiral pattern holds for a pattern speed of 13 km s-1 kpc-1, which corresponds to the pattern speed derived by Patsis, Grosbøl & Hiotelis (1997), after correction for the difference in the galaxy distances that were used by them and by us. Specifically, high pattern speed values do not agree with the observed arm pitch angle. The acoustic spiral theory of Elmegreen et al. (1998) is not applicable to the nuclear spiral structure of NGC 5248 since the spirals produced by that mechanism are chaotic and consist of several branches ($`m`$ $`>`$ 2).

Our best fit for the sound speed of the ISM, 9–16 km s-1, rules out any large increases in the sound speed in the nuclear few hundred parsec region of NGC 5248 and is consistent with values derived for the ISM in our Galaxy.

## Acknowledgments

This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The William Herschel Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

This paper has been typeseet from a / file prepared by the author.