Welcome to Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Today is
Research Articles

Comparisons among common methods of calculating stellar masses and star formation rates for normal galaxies

  • LI Cuihuan ,
  • LI Guodong ,
  • TSAI Chao-Wei ,
  • DANZENG Luobu
Expand
  • 1. Department of physics, College of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa 850000, China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Cosmic Rays of Ministry of Education, Tibet University, Lhasa 850000, China;
    3. National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
    4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
    5. CAS Key Laboratory of FAST, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Received date: 2022-03-07

  Revised date: 2022-05-06

  Online published: 2022-05-06

Abstract

Stellar mass and star formation rate are essential properties of galaxies. They are also an important basis for understanding the evolution of baryonic matter distribution on the cosmic time scale. Astronomers have developed many methods to estimate the stellar mass and star formation rate of a single galaxy using multi-waveband data. This paper evaluates the variations of the results from different stellar mass and star formation rate estimation methods using multi-wavelength sky survey data of a sample of normal galaxies from the Salon Digital Sky Survey. Our study shows that the results of various stellar mass estimation methods are not significantly different. However, the degree of deviation between the estimated star formation rates from different methods is significant and critical. Therefore, to avoid inaccurate interpretation caused by the discrepancy of different estimation methods, a similar observation data set and the same star formation rate estimation method should be used for each galaxy when comparing star formation rates between galaxies or analyzing star formation rates of a large galaxy sample.

Cite this article

LI Cuihuan , LI Guodong , TSAI Chao-Wei , DANZENG Luobu . Comparisons among common methods of calculating stellar masses and star formation rates for normal galaxies[J]. Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024 , 41(3) : 312 -320 . DOI: 10.7523/j.ucas.2022.052

References

[1] Brinchmann J, Charlot S, White S D M, et al. The physical properties of star-forming galaxies in the low-redshift Universe[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2004, 351(4): 1151-1179. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07881.x.
[2] Bruzual G, Charlot S. Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2003, 344(4):1000-1028. DOI:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06897.x.
[3] Papovich C, Dickinson M, Ferguson H C. The stellar populations and evolution of lyman break galaxies[EB/OL]. 2001: arXiv: astro-ph/0105087. (2001-05-04)[2022-04-27]https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0105087.
[4] Kennicutt Jr R C, Evans II N J. Star formation in the milky way and nearby galaxies[J]. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2012, 50(1): 531-608. DOI:10.1146/annurev-astro-081811-125610.
[5] Mancone C L, Gonzalez A H. EzGal: a flexible interface for stellar population synthesis models[J]. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2012, 124(916): 606-615. DOI:10.1086/666502.
[6] Boquien M, Burgarella D, Roehlly Y, et al. CIGALE: a python code investigating GALaxy emission[EB/OL].2019:arXiv:1811.03094.(2018-11-07)[2022-04-27]https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03094.
[7] Yang G, Boquien M, Buat V, et al. X-cigale: fitting AGN/galaxy SEDs from X-ray to infrared[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2019, 491(1): 740-757. DOI:10.1093/mnras/stz3001.
[8] Alam S, Albareti F D, Prieto C A, et al. The eleventh and twelfth data releases of the Sloan digital sky survey: final data from sdss-iii[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2015, 219(1):12. DOI:10.1088/0067-0049/219/1/12.
[9] Bianchi L, Shiao B, Thilker D. Revised catalog of GALEX ultraviolet sources. I. The all-sky survey: GUVcat_AIS[EB/OL].2017:arXiv:1704.05903(2017-04-19) [2022-04-27]https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05903.
[10] Chambers K C, Magnier E A, Metcalfe N, et al. The pan-STARRS1 surveys[EB/OL]. 2016: arXiv: 1612.05560[astro-ph.IM].(2016-12-16)[2022-04-27]https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.05560.
[11] Lawrence A, Warren S J, Almaini O, et al. The UKIRT infrared deep sky survey (UKIDSS)[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007,379(4):1599-1617.DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12040.x.
[12] Marocco F, Eisenhardt P R M, Fowler J W, et al. The CatWISE2020 catalog[EB/OL]. 2020: arXiv:2012.13084(2020-12-24)[2022-04-27]https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.13084.
[13] Wright E L, Eisenhardt P R M, Mainzer A K, et al. The wide-field infrared survey explorer (wise): mission description and initial on-orbit performance[J]. The Astronomical Journal, 2010, 140(6):1868-1881.DOI:10.1088/0004-6256/140/6/1868.
[14] Kauffmann G, Heckman T M, White S D M, et al. Stellar masses and star formation histories for 105 galaxies from the Sloan digital sky survey[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2003,341(1):33-53.DOI:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06291.x.
[15] Bell E F, McIntosh D H, Katz N, et al. The optical and near-infrared properties of galaxies. I. Luminosity and stellar mass functions[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters Supplement Series, 2003, 149(2): 289-312. DOI:10.1086/378847.
[16] Yang G, Boquien M, Brandt W N, et al. Fitting AGN/galaxy X-ray-to-radio SEDs with CIGALE and improvement of the code[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2022, 927(2): 192. DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ac4971.
[17] Maraston C. Evolutionary population synthesis: models, analysis of the ingredients and application to high-z galaxies[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2005, 362(3):799-825. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09270.x.
[18] Charlot S, Longhetti M. Nebular emission from star-forming galaxies[J]. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2001, 323(4):887-903. DOI:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04260.x.
[19] Hao C N, Kennicutt R C, Johnson B D, et al. Dust-corrected star formation rates of galaxies. II. Combinations of ultraviolet and infrared tracers[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2011, 741(2):124. DOI:10.1088/0004-637x/741/2/124.
[20] Murphy E J, Condon J J, Schinnerer E, et al. Calibrating extinction-free star formation rate diagnostics with 33 GHz free-free emission in NGC6946[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2011, 737(2):67. DOI:10.1088/0004-637x/737/2/67.
[21] Fitzpatrick E L, Massa D. An analysis of the shapes of interstellar extinction curves. V. The IR-through-UV curve morphology[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2007, 663(1): 320-341. DOI:10.1086/518158.
[22] Ciesla L, Elbaz D, Fensch J. The SFR-M* main sequence archetypal star-formation history and analytical models[J]. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2017, 608: A41. DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/201731036.
[23] Kennicutt R C Jr. Star formation in galaxies along the Hubble sequence[J]. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1998, 36: 189-231. DOI:10.1146/annurev.astro.36.1.189.
[24] Brown M J I, Moustakas J, Smith J D T, et al. An atlas of galaxy spectral energy distributions from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared[J]. The Astrophysical Journal Letters Supplement Series, 2014, 212(2): 18. DOI:10.1088/0067-0049/212/2/18.
Outlines

/