M.A. Norris
Being WISE II: Reducing the Influence of Star formation History on the Mass-to-Light Ratio of Quiescent Galaxies
Norris, M.A.; Van de Ven, G.; Schinnerer, E.; Crain, R.A.; Meidt, S.; Groves, B.; Bower, R.G.; Furlong, M.; Schaller, M.; Schaye, J.; Theuns, T.
Authors
G. Van de Ven
E. Schinnerer
R.A. Crain
S. Meidt
B. Groves
R.G. Bower
M. Furlong
M. Schaller
J. Schaye
Professor Tom Theuns tom.theuns@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Abstract
Stellar population synthesis models can now reproduce the photometry of old stellar systems (age > 2 Gyr) in the near-infrared (NIR) bands at 3.4 and 4.6μm (WISE W1 & W2 or IRAC 1 & 2). In this paper we derive stellar mass-to-light ratios for these and optical bands, and confirm that the NIR M/L shows dramatically reduced sensitivity to both age and metallicity compared to optical bands, and further, that this behavior leads to significantly more robust stellar masses for quiescent galaxies with [Fe/H] > -0.5 regardless of star formation history (SFH). We then use realistic early-type galaxy SFHs and metallicity distributions from the EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation to investigate two methods to determine the appropriate M/L for a galaxy: 1) We show that the uncertainties introduced by an unknown SFH can be largely removed using a spectroscopically inferred luminosity-weighted age and metallicity for the population to select the appropriate single stellar population (SSP) equivalent M/L. Using this method, the maximum systematic error due to SFH on the M/L of an early-type galaxy is < 4% at 3.4 μm and typical uncertainties due to errors in the age and metallicity create scatter of ≲13%. The equivalent values for optical bands are more than 2-3 times greater, even before considering uncertainties associated with internal dust extinction. 2) We demonstrate that if the EAGLE SFHs and metallicities accurately reproduce the true properties of early-type galaxies, the use of an iterative approach to select a mass dependent M/L can provide even more accurate stellar masses for early-type galaxies, with typical uncertainties < 9%.
Citation
Norris, M., Van de Ven, G., Schinnerer, E., Crain, R., Meidt, S., Groves, B., …Theuns, T. (2016). Being WISE II: Reducing the Influence of Star formation History on the Mass-to-Light Ratio of Quiescent Galaxies. Astrophysical Journal, 832(2), Article 198. https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637x/832/2/198
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Aug 25, 2016 |
Online Publication Date | Dec 1, 2016 |
Publication Date | Dec 1, 2016 |
Deposit Date | Feb 27, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 29, 2024 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Print ISSN | 0004-637X |
Electronic ISSN | 1538-4357 |
Publisher | American Astronomical Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 832 |
Issue | 2 |
Article Number | 198 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637x/832/2/198 |
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Copyright Statement
© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
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