Accuracy of Stellar Mass-to-light Ratios of Nearby Galaxies in the Near-Infrared

Future satellite missions are expected to perform all-sky surveys, thus providing the entire sky near-infrared spectral data and consequently opening a new window to investigate the evolution of galaxies. Specifically, the infrared spectral data facilitate the precise estimation of stellar masses of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-11
Main Authors: Kim, Taehyun, Kim, Minjin, Ho, Luis C, Li, Yang A, Jeong, Woong-Seob, Kim, Dohyeong, Kim, Yongjung, Lee, Bomee, Lee, Dongseob, Lee, Jeong Hwan, Pyo, Jeonghyun, Shim, Hyunjin, Son, Suyeon, Song, Hyunmi, Yang, Yujin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Galaxy distribution
Infrared spectra
Missions
Near infrared radiation
Red shift
Scattering
Sky surveys (astronomy)
Spectral energy distribution
Star & galaxy formation
Star formation rate
Stellar mass
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Future satellite missions are expected to perform all-sky surveys, thus providing the entire sky near-infrared spectral data and consequently opening a new window to investigate the evolution of galaxies. Specifically, the infrared spectral data facilitate the precise estimation of stellar masses of numerous low-redshift galaxies. We utilize the synthetic spectral energy distribution (SED) of 2853 nearby galaxies drawn from the DustPedia (435) and Stripe 82 regions (2418). The stellar mass-to-light ratio (\(M_*/L\)) estimation accuracy over a wavelength range of \(0.75-5.0\) \(\mu\)m is computed through the SED fitting of the multi-wavelength photometric dataset, which has not yet been intensively explored in previous studies. We find that the scatter in \(M_*/L\) is significantly larger in the shorter and longer wavelength regimes due to the effect of the young stellar population and the dust contribution, respectively. While the scatter in \(M_*/L\) approaches its minimum (\(\sim0.10\) dex) at \(\sim1.6\) \(\mu\)m, it remains sensitive to the adopted star formation history model. Furthermore, \(M_*/L\) demonstrates weak and strong correlations with the stellar mass and the specific star formation rate (SFR), respectively. Upon adequately correcting the dependence of \(M_*/L\) on the specific SFR, the scatter in the \(M_*/L\) further reduces to \(0.02\) dex at \(\sim1.6\) \(\mu\)m. This indicates that the stellar mass can be estimated with an accuracy of \(\sim0.02\) dex with a prior knowledge of SFR, which can be estimated using the infrared spectra obtained with future survey missions.
ISSN:2331-8422