2024MNRAS.530.1849R

Galaxies obey a number of empirical correlations between their radio, γ-ray, and infrared emission, but the physical origins of these correlations remain uncertain. Here, we use the CONGRUENTS model for broad-band non-thermal emission from star-forming galaxies, which self-consistently calculates energy-dependent transport and non-thermal emission from cosmic ray hadrons and leptons, to predict radio and γ-ray emission for a synthetic galaxy population with properties drawn from a large deep-field survey. We show that our synthetic galaxies reproduce observed relations such as the far infrared (FIR)-radio correlation, the FIR-γ correlation, and the distribution of radio spectral indices, and we use the model to explain the physical origins of these relations. Our results show that the FIR-radio correlation arises because the amount of cosmic ray electron power ultimately radiated as synchrotron emission varies only weakly with galaxy star formation rate as a result of the constraints imposed on gas properties by hydrostatic balance and turbulent dynamo action; the same physics dictates the extent of proton calorimetry in different galaxies, and thus sets the FIR-γ-ray correlation. We further show that galactic radio spectral indices result primarily from competition between thermal free-free emission and energy-dependent loss of cosmic ray electrons to bremsstrahlung and escape into galactic haloes, with shaping of the spectrum by inverse Compton, synchrotron, and ionization processes typically playing a subdominant role. In addition to explaining existing observations, we use our analysis to predict a heretofore unseen correlation between the curvature of galaxies' radio spectra and their pion-driven γ-ray emission, a prediction that will be testable with upcoming facilities.