Alignment of Paschen-line SFRs with the adopted calibration

Determine the degree to which the Paschen-line star-formation-rate estimates for the JWST JELS Paschen-[?] emitters align with the Reddy et al. (2023) line-luminosity-to-SFR calibrations, using direct measurements of the nebular line attenuation $A_{\rm Line}$.

Background

The paper estimates short-timescale star-formation rates from Paschen-$\alpha$ and Paschen-$\beta$ emission using the calibrations of Reddy et al. (2023), while estimating nebular extinction indirectly from stellar-continuum attenuation derived through SED fitting. The authors note that they do not have direct measurements of $A_{\rm Line}$ for the individual emitters, which prevents them from testing whether the inferred SFRs are consistent with the adopted calibrations.

Direct spectroscopic follow-up, such as observations with JWST/NIRSpec, is identified as the means of measuring the obscuration of the Paschen-line emitters and resolving the calibration uncertainty. This matters because the relative calibration coefficients for Paschen-$\beta$ and Paschen-$\alpha$ differ substantially, and the assumed nebular attenuation law can further alter the extinction-corrected SFRs.