We have fit the far-ultraviolet (FUV) to sub-millimeter (850 μm) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the 61 galaxies from the Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: A Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel (KINGFISH). The fitting has been performed using three models: the Code for Investigating GALaxy Evolution (CIGALE), the GRAphite-SILicate approach (GRASIL), and the Multiwavelength Analysis of Galaxy PHYSical properties (MAGPHYS). We have analyzed the results of the three codes in terms of the SED shapes, and by comparing the derived quantities with simple "recipes" for stellar mass (M_star), star-formation rate (SFR), dust mass (M_dust), and monochromatic luminosities. Although the algorithms rely on different assumptions for star-formation history, dust attenuation and dust reprocessing, they all well approximate the observed SEDs and are in generally good agreement for the associated quantities. However, the three codes show very different behavior in the mid-infrared regime: in the 5-10 μm region dominated by PAH emission, and also between 25 and 70 μm where there are no observational constraints for the KINGFISH sample. We find that different algorithms give discordant SFR estimates for galaxies with low specific SFR, and that the standard recipes for calculating FUV absorption overestimate the extinction compared to the SED-fitting results. Results also suggest that assuming a "standard" constant stellar mass-to-light ratio overestimates M_star relative to the SED fitting, and we provide new SED-based formulations for estimating M_star from WISE W1 (3.4 μm) luminosities and colors. From a principal component analysis of M_star, SFR, M_dust, and O/H, we reproduce previous scaling relations among M_star, SFR, and O/H, and find that M_dust can be predicted to within ∼0.3 dex using only M_star and SFR.@en

With its relatively low ionization potential, C⁺ can be found throughout the interstellar medium (ISM) and provides one of the main cooling channels of the ISM via the [C ii] 157 μm emission. While the strength of the [C ii] line correlates with the star formation rate, the contributions of the various gas phases to the [C ii] emission on galactic scales are not well established. In this study we establish an empirical multi-component model of the ISM, including dense H ii regions, dense photon dissociation regions (PDRs), the warm ionized medium (WIM), low density and surfaces of molecular clouds (SfMCs), and the cold neutral medium (CNM). We test our model on ten luminous regions within the two nearby galaxies NGC 3184 and NGC 628 on angular scales of 500-600 pc. Both galaxies are part of the Herschel key program KINGFISH, and are complemented by a large set of ancillary ground- and space-based data. The five modeled phases together reproduce the observed [C ii] emission quite well, overpredicting the total flux slightly (about 45%) averaged over all regions. We find that dense PDRs are the dominating component, contributing 68% of the [C ii] flux on average, followed by the WIM and the SfMCs, with mean contributions of about half of the contribution from dense PDRs, each. CNM and dense H ii regions are only minor contributors with less than 5% each. These estimates are averaged over the selected regions, but the relative contributions of the various phases to the [C ii] flux vary significantly between these regions.

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We present [C ii] 158 μm measurements from over 15,000 resolved regions within 54 nearby galaxies of the Kingfish program to investigate the so-called [C ii] "line-cooling deficit" long known to occur in galaxies with different luminosities. The [C ii]/TIR ratio ranges from above 1% to below 0.1% in the sample, with a mean value of 0.48 ± 0.21%. We find that the surface density of 24 μm emission dominates this trend, with [C ii]/TIR dropping as vI_v (24 μm)increases. Deviations from this overall decline are correlated with changes in the gas-phase metal abundance, with higher metallicity associated with deeper deficits at a fixed surface brightness. We supplement the local sample with resolved [C ii] measurements from nearby luminous infrared galaxies and high-redshift sources from z = 1.8-6.4, and find that star formation rate density drives a continuous trend of deepening [C ii] deficit across six orders of magnitude in Σ_SFR. The tightness of this correlation suggests that an approximate can be estimated directly from global measurements of [C ii]/TIR, and a relation is provided to do so. Several low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN) hosts in the sample show additional and significant central suppression of [C ii]/TIR, but these deficit enhancements occur not in those AGNs with the highest X-ray luminosities, but instead those with the highest central starlight intensities. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the [C ii] line-cooling line deficit in galaxies likely arises from local physical phenomena in interstellar gas.

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The [NII] 122 and 205 um transitions are powerful tracers of the ionized gas in the ISM: (1) the [NII] 122/205 line ratio can be used to measure the electron density of the low-excitation, ionized gas, and (2) the intensity of these lines is directly related to the flux of ionizing photons, probing the most recent star formation activity. The study of these applications in nearby galaxies is specially relevant now that ALMA can observe both [NII] transitions at z>2. In this talk I will present Herschel observations of these pair of [NII] far-infrared lines in 21 nearby galaxies selected from the KINGFISH and Beyond the Peak samples. I will discuss the reliability of the [NII] lines as star formation tracers, and how the electron density of the ionized gas is related to other relevant ISM properties (e.g., radiation field strength, star formation activity, dust temperature, etc). @en