The Local Universe as Seen in the Far-Infrared and Far-Ultraviolet: A Global Point of View of the Local Recent Star Formation

We select far-infrared (FIR: 60 μm) and far-ultraviolet (FUV: 530 Å) samples of nearby galaxies in order to discuss the biases encountered by monochromatic surveys (FIR or FUV). Very different volumes are sampled by each selection, and much care is taken to apply volume corrections to all the analyses. The distributions of the bolometric luminosity of young stars are compared for both samples: they are found to be consistent with each other for galaxies of intermediate luminosities, but some differences are found for high (>5 × 10^(10) L_☉) luminosities. The shallowness of the IRAS survey prevents us from securing a comparison at low luminosities (