• DOI:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05660.x
• Corpus ID: 18262569

SCUBA observations of galaxies with metallicity measurements: a new method for determining the relation between submillimetre luminosity and dust mass

@article{James2002SCUBAOO,
  title={SCUBA observations of galaxies with metallicity measurements: a new method for determining the relation between submillimetre luminosity and dust mass},
  author={A. James and Loretta Dunne and Stephen A. Eales and Michael Edmunds},
  journal={Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year={2002},
  volume={335},
  pages={753-761}
}

• A. James, L. Dunne, +1 author M. Edmunds
• Published 30 April 2002
• Physics
• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Using a new technique, we have determined a value for the constant of proportionality between submillimetre emission and dust mass, the dust mass‐absorption coefficient (κd) at 850 µm. Our method has an advantage over previous methods in that we avoid assumptions about the properties of dust in the interstellar medium. Our only assumption is that the fraction of metals incorporated in the dust (e) in galaxies is a universal constant. To implement our method, we require objects that have submillimetre and far-infrared flux measurements as well as gas mass and metallicity estimates. We present data for all the galaxies with suitable measurements, including new submillimetre maps for five galaxies. We find κ850 = 0.07 ± 0.02 m 2 kg −1 . We have also been able to use our sample to investigate our assumption that e is a universal constant. We find no evidence that e is different for dwarf and giant galaxies, and show that the scatter in e from galaxy to galaxy is apparently quite small.