Star Formation in the NICMOS HDF

Abstract

This contribution discusses the rate of star formation in the galaxies observed in the NICMOS Hubble Deep Field. A combination of the earlier fluxes from the WFPC II HDF measurements and the NICMOS near infrared measurement produces a superb data base for the application of photometric redshift techniques. By capitalizing on the extended wavelength coverage of this data we also determine the most likely extinction values for each galaxy. With these measurements we then calculate the star formation rate for each galaxy and determine the distribution of this rate with redshift. Our basic conclusion is that the star formation rate in the NICMOS HDF has been relatively constant for redshifts between 1 and 6.