Publication: Reconstructing the stellar mass distributions of galaxies using S^4G irac 3.6 and 4.5 μm images. II. The conversion from light to mass
Loading...
Official URL
Full text at PDC
Publication Date
2014-06-20
Authors
Advisors (or tutors)
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Abstract
We present a new approach for estimating the 3.6 μm stellar mass-to-light (M/L) ratio Υ_3.6 in terms of the [3.6]-[4.5] colors of old stellar populations. Our approach avoids several of the largest sources of uncertainty in existing techniques using population synthesis models. By focusing on mid-IR wavelengths, we gain a virtually dust extinction-free tracer of the old stars, avoiding the need to adopt a dust model to correctly interpret optical or optical/near-IR colors normally leveraged to assign the mass-to-light ratio Upsilon. By calibrating a new relation between near-IR and mid-IR colors of giant stars observed in GLIMPSE we also avoid the discrepancies in model predictions for the [3.6]-[4.5] colors of old stellar populations due to uncertainties in the molecular line opacities assumed in template spectra. We find that the [3.6]-[4.5] color, which is driven primarily by metallicity, provides a tight constraint on Upsilon3.6, which varies intrinsically less than at optical wavelengths. The uncertainty on Υ3.6 of ~0.07 dex due to unconstrained age variations marks a significant improvement on existing techniques for estimating the stellar M/L with shorter wavelength data. A single Υ3.6 = 0.6 (assuming a Chabrier initial mass function (IMF)), independent of [3.6]-[4.5] color, is also feasible because it can be applied simultaneously to old, metal-rich and young, metal-poor populations, and still with comparable (or better) accuracy (~0.1 dex) than alternatives. We expect our Υ3.6 to be optimal for mapping the stellar mass distributions in S4G galaxies, for which we have developed an independent component analysis technique to first isolate the old stellar light at 3.6 μm from nonstellar emission (e.g., hot dust and the 3.3 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon feature). Our estimate can also be used to determine the fractional contribution of nonstellar emission to global (rest-frame) 3.6 μm fluxes, e.g., in WISE imaging, and establishes a reliable basis for exploring variations in the stellar IMF.
Description
© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Artículo firmado por 29 autores. Thanks to Mariya Lyubenova for fruitful discussion and the entire S4G team. E.A., A.B., J.K., G.vdV., M.Q., S.M., and E.S. acknowledge financial support of the DAGAL network from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement number PITN-GA-2011-289313. K.S., J.-C.M.-M., and T.K. acknowledge support from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
UCM subjects
Unesco subjects
Keywords
Citation
Balcells, M., Graham, A. W., Domínguez Palmero, L., & Peletier, R. F. 2003, ApJ, 582, L79
Bell, E. F., & de Jong, R. S. 2001, ApJ, 550, 212
Benjamin, B. A., Churchwell, E., Babler, B. L., et al. 2003, PASP, 115, 953
Bernardi, M., Shankar, F., Hyde, J. B., et al. 2010, MNRAS, 404, 2087
Bessell, M. S., & Brett, J. M. 1988, PASP, 100, 1134
Bolatto, A. D., Simón, J. D., Stanimirović, S., et al. 2007, ApJ, 655, 212
Bruzual, G. 2007, Stellar Populations as Building Blocks of Galaxies (IAU Symp. 241), ed. A. Vazdekis & R. Peletier (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press), 125
Bruzual, G., & Charlot, S. 2003, MNRAS, 344, 1000
Cardelli, J. A., Clayton, G. C., & Mathis, J. S. 2001, 1989, ApJ, 345, 245
Carpenter, J. M. 2001, AJ, 121, 2851
Cesetti, M., Pizzella, A., Ivanov, V. D., et al. 2013, A&A, 549, 129
Churchwell, E., Babler, B. L., Meade, M. R., et al. 2009, PASP, 121, 213
Courteau, S., de Jong, R. S., & Broeils, A. H. 1996, ApJL, 457, 73
Dalcanton, J. J., & Bernstein, R. A. 2002, AJ, 124, 1328
da Cunha, E., Charlot, S., & Elbaz, D. 2008, MNRAS, 388, 1595
de Blok, W. J. G., Walter, F., Brinks, E., et al. 2008, AJ, 136, 2648
de Denus-Baillargeon, M.-M., Hernandez, O., Boissier, et al. 2013, ApJ, 773, 173
Elmegreen, D. M., & Elmegreen, B. G. 1984, ApJS, 54, 127
Elmegreen, B. G., Elmegreen, D. M., Knapen, J. H., et al. 2007, ApJL, 670, 97
Eskew, M., Zaritsky, D., & Meidt, S. E. 2012, AJ, 143, 139
Florido, E., Battaner, E., Guijarro, A., Garzón, F., & Jiménez Vicente, J. 2001, A&A, 378, 82
Foyle, K., Rix, H.-W., & Zibetti, Z. 2010, MNRAS, 407, 163
Gallazzi, A., Charlot, S., Brinchmann, J., White, S. D. M., & Tremonti, C. A. 2005, MNRAS, 362, 41
Ganda, K., Peletier, R. F., Balcells, M., & Falcón Barroso, J. 2009, MNRAS, 395, 1669
Governato, F., Willman, B., Mayer, L., et al. 2007, MNRAS, 374, 1479
Grosbol, P. 1993, PASP, 105, 651
Guo, Q., & White, S. D. 2008, MNRAS, 384, 2
Haan, S., Schinnerer, E., Emsellem, E., et al. 2009, ApJ, 692, 1623
Harris, J., & Zaritsky, D. 2009, AJ, 138, 1243
Hunter, D. A., Elmegreen, B. G., & Martin, E. 2006, AJ, 132, 801
Indebetouw, R., Mathis, J. S., Babler, B. L., et al. 2005, ApJ, 619, 931
Jansen, R. A., Knapen, J. H., Beckman, J. E., Peletier, R. F., & Hes, R. 1994, MNRAS, 270, 373
Jarrett, T. H., Masci, F., Tsai, C. W., et al. 2013, AJ, 145, 1538
Kauffmann, G., Heckman, T. M., White, S. D. M., et al. 2003, MNRAS, 341, 54
Kendall, S., Kennicutt, R. C., Clarke, C., & Thornley, M. D. 2008, MNRAS, 387, 1007
Kreckel, K., Groves, B., Schinnerer, E., et al. 2013, ApJ, 771, 62
Kriek, M., Labbé, I., Conroy, C., et al. 2010, ApJ, 722, L64
Macarthur, L. A., Courteau, S., Bell, E., & Holtzman, J. A. 2004, ApJSS, 152, 175
Maraston, C. 2005, MNRAS, 362, 799
Marigo, P., Girardi, L., Bressan, A., et al. 2008, A&A, 482, 883
Meidt, S. E., Schinnerer, E., Knapen, J., et al. 2012a, ApJ, 744, 17
Meidt, S. E., Schinnerer, E., Muñoz Mateos, J. C., et al. 2012b, ApJ, 748, 30
Mouhcine, M., & Lan¸con, A. 2002, A&A, 393, 149
Navarro, J. F., & White, S. D. M. 1994, MNRAS, 267, 401
Oh, S.-H., de Blok, W. J. G., Walter, F., Brinks, E., & Kennicutt, R. C. 2008, AJ, 136, 2761
Origlia, O., Rood, R. T., Fabbri, S., et al. 2010, ApJ, 718, 522
Pahre, M. A., Ashby, M. L. N., Fazio, G. G., & Willner, S. P. 2004, ApJS, 154, 235
Peletier, R. F., Kutdemir, E., van der Wolk, G., et al. 2012, MNRAS, 419, 2031
Popescu, C. C., Tuffs, R. J., Dopita, M. A., et al. 2011, A&A, 527, 109
Portinari, L., Sommer-Larsen, J., & Tantalo, R. 2004, MNRAS, 347, 691
Prescott, M. K. M., Kenicutt, R. C., Bendo, G. J., et al. 2007, ApJ, 668, 182
Reach, W. T., Megeath, S. T., Cohen, M., et al. 2005, PASP, 117, 978
Rhoads, J. E. 1998, AJ, 115, 472
Rix, H.-W., & Rieke, M. J. 1993, ApJ, 418, 123
Rix, H.-W., & Zaritsky, D. 1995, ApJ, 447, 82
Sheth, K., Regan, M., Hinze, J. L., et al. 2010, PASP, 122, 1397
Somerville, R. S. 2002, ApJL, 572, 23
Zhang, X., & Buta, R. 2007, AJ, 133, 2584
Zhu, Y. N., Wu, H., Li, H.-N., & Cao, C. 2010, RAA, 10, 329
Zibetti, S., Charlot, S., & Rix, H.-W. 2009, MNRAS, 400, 1181
Zibetti, S., Gallazzi, A., Charlot, S., et al. 2012, MNRAS, 428, 1479