TY - JOUR
T1 - The Art of Measuring Physical Parameters in Galaxies
T2 - A Critical Assessment of Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting Techniques
AU - Pacifici, Camilla
AU - Iyer, Kartheik G.
AU - Mobasher, Bahram
AU - da Cunha, Elisabete
AU - Acquaviva, Viviana
AU - Burgarella, Denis
AU - Calistro Rivera, Gabriela
AU - Carnall, Adam C.
AU - Chang, Yu Yen
AU - Chartab, Nima
AU - Cooke, Kevin C.
AU - Fairhurst, Ciaran
AU - Kartaltepe, Jeyhan
AU - Leja, Joel
AU - Małek, Katarzyna
AU - Salmon, Brett
AU - Torelli, Marianna
AU - Vidal-García, Alba
AU - Boquien, Médéric
AU - Brammer, Gabriel G.
AU - Brown, Michael J.I.
AU - Capak, Peter L.
AU - Chevallard, Jacopo
AU - Circosta, Chiara
AU - Croton, Darren
AU - Davidzon, Iary
AU - Dickinson, Mark
AU - Duncan, Kenneth J.
AU - Faber, Sandra M.
AU - Ferguson, Harry C.
AU - Fontana, Adriano
AU - Guo, Yicheng
AU - Haeussler, Boris
AU - Hemmati, Shoubaneh
AU - Jafariyazani, Marziye
AU - Kassin, Susan A.
AU - Larson, Rebecca L.
AU - Lee, Bomee
AU - Mantha, Kameswara Bharadwaj
AU - Marchi, Francesca
AU - Nayyeri, Hooshang
AU - Newman, Jeffrey A.
AU - Pandya, Viraj
AU - Pforr, Janine
AU - Reddy, Naveen
AU - Sanders, Ryan
AU - Shah, Ekta
AU - Shahidi, Abtin
AU - Stevans, Matthew L.
AU - Triani, Dian Puspita
AU - Tyler, Krystal D.
AU - Vanderhoof, Brittany N.
AU - de la Vega, Alexander
AU - Wang, Weichen
AU - Weston, Madalyn E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the anonymous referee for their very constructive report. We thank the University of California, Riverside for hosting the workshop where this work started. The workshop was supported by National Science Foundation funding. This paper does not reflect the views or opinions of the National Science Foundation or the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). We thank Audrey Galametz, Joel Primack, and Meaghann Stoelting for insightful conversations. C.P. was supported by the Canadian Space Agency under a contract with NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. Support for K.I. was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant No. HST-HF2-51508 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. Support for V.P. was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant No. HST-HF2-51489 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. M.B. acknowledges support from FONDECYT regular grant No. 1211000 and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. K.M. is grateful for support from the Polish National Science Centre via grant No. UMO-2018/30/E/ST9/00082. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Funding Information:
We thank the anonymous referee for their very constructive report. We thank the University of California, Riverside for hosting the workshop where this work started. The workshop was supported by National Science Foundation funding. This paper does not reflect the views or opinions of the National Science Foundation or the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). We thank Audrey Galametz, Joel Primack, and Meaghann Stoelting for insightful conversations. C.P. was supported by the Canadian Space Agency under a contract with NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics. Support for K.I. was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant No. HST-HF2-51508 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. Support for V.P. was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant No. HST-HF2-51489 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. M.B. acknowledges support from FONDECYT regular grant No. 1211000 and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. K.M. is grateful for support from the Polish National Science Centre via grant No. UMO-2018/30/E/ST9/00082. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2023/2/20
Y1 - 2023/2/20
N2 - The study of galaxy evolution hinges on our ability to interpret multiwavelength galaxy observations in terms of their physical properties. To do this, we rely on spectral energy distribution (SED) models, which allow us to infer physical parameters from spectrophotometric data. In recent years, thanks to wide and deep multiwave band galaxy surveys, the volume of high-quality data have significantly increased. Alongside the increased data, algorithms performing SED fitting have improved, including better modeling prescriptions, newer templates, and more extensive sampling in wavelength space. We present a comprehensive analysis of different SED-fitting codes including their methods and output with the aim of measuring the uncertainties caused by the modeling assumptions. We apply 14 of the most commonly used SED-fitting codes on samples from the CANDELS photometric catalogs at z ∼ 1 and z ∼ 3. We find agreement on the stellar mass, while we observe some discrepancies in the star formation rate (SFR) and dust-attenuation results. To explore the differences and biases among the codes, we explore the impact of the various modeling assumptions as they are set in the codes (e.g., star formation histories, nebular, dust and active galactic nucleus models) on the derived stellar masses, SFRs, and A V values. We then assess the difference among the codes on the SFR-stellar mass relation and we measure the contribution to the uncertainties by the modeling choices (i.e., the modeling uncertainties) in stellar mass (∼0.1 dex), SFR (∼0.3 dex), and dust attenuation (∼0.3 mag). Finally, we present some resources summarizing best practices in SED fitting.
AB - The study of galaxy evolution hinges on our ability to interpret multiwavelength galaxy observations in terms of their physical properties. To do this, we rely on spectral energy distribution (SED) models, which allow us to infer physical parameters from spectrophotometric data. In recent years, thanks to wide and deep multiwave band galaxy surveys, the volume of high-quality data have significantly increased. Alongside the increased data, algorithms performing SED fitting have improved, including better modeling prescriptions, newer templates, and more extensive sampling in wavelength space. We present a comprehensive analysis of different SED-fitting codes including their methods and output with the aim of measuring the uncertainties caused by the modeling assumptions. We apply 14 of the most commonly used SED-fitting codes on samples from the CANDELS photometric catalogs at z ∼ 1 and z ∼ 3. We find agreement on the stellar mass, while we observe some discrepancies in the star formation rate (SFR) and dust-attenuation results. To explore the differences and biases among the codes, we explore the impact of the various modeling assumptions as they are set in the codes (e.g., star formation histories, nebular, dust and active galactic nucleus models) on the derived stellar masses, SFRs, and A V values. We then assess the difference among the codes on the SFR-stellar mass relation and we measure the contribution to the uncertainties by the modeling choices (i.e., the modeling uncertainties) in stellar mass (∼0.1 dex), SFR (∼0.3 dex), and dust attenuation (∼0.3 mag). Finally, we present some resources summarizing best practices in SED fitting.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148867957&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/acacff
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/acacff
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85148867957
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 944
JO - The Astrophysical Journal
JF - The Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 141
ER -