Multiwavelength Energy Distributions and Bolometric Luminosities of the 12--Micron Galaxy Sample

Abstract

Aperture photometry from our own observations and the literature is presented for the 12\um\ Galaxies in the near infrared J, H and K bands and, in some cases, in the L band. These data are corrected to ``total'' near--infrared magnitudes, (with a typical uncertainty of 0.3 magnitudes) for a direct comparison with our IRAS fluxes which apply to the entire galaxy. The corrected data are used to derive integrated total NIR and FIR luminosities. We then combine these with blue photometry and an estimate of the flux contribution from cold dust at wavelengths longward of 100\um\ to derive the first {\it bolometric\/} luminosities for a large sample of galaxies. We use multiwavelength correlations to identify several combinations of infrared colors which discriminate between Seyfert~1 and~2 galaxies, LINERs, and ultraluminous starbursts. We find that bolometric luminosity is more closely proportional to 12-micron luminosity than to 60-micron, 25-micron or optical luminosity.