The history of star-forming galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Résumé
This paper, the sixth in the Semi-Empirical Analysis of Galaxies series, studies the evolution of 82302 star-forming (SF) galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Star formation histories (SFHs) are derived from detailed spectral fits obtained with our publicly available spectral synthesis code STARLIGHT. Our main goals are to explore new ways to derive SFHs from the synthesis results and apply them to investigate how SFHs vary as a function of nebular metallicity (Zneb). A number of refinements over our previous work are introduced, including (1) an improved selection criterion; (2) a careful examination of systematic residuals around Hbeta (3) self-consistent determination of nebular extinctions and metallicities; (4) tests with several Zneb estimators; (5) a study of the effects of the reddening law adopted and of the relation between nebular and stellar extinctions and the interstellar component of the NaI D doublet.