Biases and systematics in the observational derivation of galaxy properties: comparing different techniques on synthetic observations of simulated galaxies

Abstract

We study the sources of biases and systematics in the derivation of galaxy properties of observational studies, focusing on stellar masses, star formation rates, gas/stellar metallicities, stellar ages and magnitudes/colors. We use hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, for which the real quantities are known, and apply observational techniques to derive the observables. We also make an analysis of biases that are relevant for a proper comparison between simulations and observations. For our study, we post-process the simulation outputs to calculate the galaxies' spectral energy distributions (SEDs) using Stellar Population Synthesis models and also generating the fully-consistent far UV-submillimeter wavelength SEDs with the radiative transfer code SUNRISE. We compared the direct results of simulations with the observationally-derived quantities obtained in various ways, and found that systematic differences in all studied galaxy properties appear, which are caused by: (1) purely observational biases, (2) the use of mass-weighted/luminosity-weighted quantities, with preferential sampling of more massive/luminous regions, (3) the different ways to construct the template of models when a fit to the spectra is performed, and (4) variations due to the use of different calibrations, most notably in the cases of the gas metallicities and star formation rates. Our results show that large differences can appear depending on the technique used to derive galaxy properties. Understanding these differences is of primary importance both for simulators, to allow a better judgement on similarities/differences with observations, and for observers, to allow a proper interpretation of the data.

arXiv comment22 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, MNRAS accepted

References in corpus (102)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• The Origin of the Mass--Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-Forming Galaxies in the SDSS
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• Observational Evidence of AGN Feedback
• Stellar Masses and Star Formation Histories for 10^5 Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• Evolutionary population synthesis: models, analysis of the ingredients and application to high-z galaxies
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• The Aquarius Project: the subhalos of galactic halos
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• The Initial Mass Function of Stars: Evidence for Uniformity in Variable Systems
• [O III]/[N II] as an Abundance Indicator at High Redshift
• A Simple Model for the Absorption of Starlight by Dust in Galaxies
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• Metallicity Calibrations and the Mass-Metallicity Relation for Star-Forming Galaxies
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• The ages and metallicities of galaxies in the local universe
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling III: model calibration, comparison, and evaluation
• A Universal Stellar Initial Mass Function? A Critical Look at Variations
• Minor mergers and the size evolution of elliptical galaxies
• The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Modeling the Panchromatic Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
• Galaxy Star-Formation as a Function of Environment in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Metallicities of 0.3<z<1.0 Galaxies in the GOODS-North Field
• The Stellar Population Histories of Early-Type Galaxies. II. Controlling Parameters of the Stellar Populations
• Old Stellar Populations. VI. Absorption-Line Spectra of Galaxy Nuclei and Globular Clusters
• The Stellar Population Histories of Local Early-Type Galaxies. I. Population Parameters
• The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in SDSS Commissioning Data
• Scattering by Interstellar Dust Grains: Optical and Ultraviolet
• The chemical composition of metal-poor emission-line galaxies in the Data Release 3 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Evolution of the Elemental Abundances in the Gas and Dust Phases of the Galaxy
• Forming Disk Galaxies in Lambda CDM Simulations
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation with the Direct Method on Stacked Spectra of SDSS Galaxies
• Gaseous Galaxy Halos
• Optimization of Starburst99 for Intermediate-Age and Old Stellar Populations
• The Aquila comparison Project: The Effects of Feedback and Numerical Methods on Simulations of Galaxy Formation
• New light on the search for low metallicity galaxies I. The N2 method
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The b_J-band galaxy luminosity function and survey selection function
• Simulations of Galaxy Formation in a Lambda CDM Universe I: Dynamical and Photometric Properties of a Simulated Disk Galaxy
• The Composition Gradient in M101 Revisited. II. Electron Temperatures and Implications for the Nebular Abundance Scale
• [OII] as a Star Formation Rate Indicator
• Preparing Red-Green-Blue (RGB) Images from CCD Data
• Formation of early-type galaxies from cosmological initial conditions
• Ages and metallicities of early-type galaxies in the SDSS: new insight into the physical origin of the colour-magnitude and the Mg2-sigmaV relations
• Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
• The stellar populations of spiral galaxies
• Dusty, Radiation Pressure Dominated Photoionization. I. Model Description, Structure And Grids
• The Formation and Survival of Discs in a Lambda-CDM Universe
• Sunrise: Polychromatic Dust Radiative Transfer in Arbitrary Geometries
• Constraints on a Universal IMF from UV to Near-IR Galaxy Luminosity Densities
• Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations
• Galaxy Number Counts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• Effects of Supernova Feedback on the Formation of Galaxy Disks
• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - V. Tracing changes in star formation rate and metallicity out to separations of 80 kpc
• Recovering galaxy star formation and metallicity histories from spectra using VESPA
• Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: IV The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED
• Recovering galaxy stellar population properties from broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting
• On the oxygen abundance determination in HII regions: High - metallicity regions
• Feedback and metal enrichment in cosmological SPH simulations - II. A multiphase model with supernova energy feedback
• Forming a Large Disc Galaxy from a z<1 Major Merger
• Metallicity Gradients in Disks: Do Galaxies Form Inside-Out?
• The H-alpha and Infrared Star Formation Rates for the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey
• Submillimetre galaxies in a hierarchical universe: number counts, redshift distribution, and implications for the IMF
• Feedback and metal enrichment in cosmological SPH simulations I. A model for chemical enrichment
• Total Galaxy Magnitudes and Effective Radii from Petrosian Magnitudes and Radii
• Reproducing the Stellar Mass/Halo Mass Relation in Simulated LCDM Galaxies: Theory vs Observational Estimates
• An Empirical Calibration of Star Formation Rate Estimators
• Biases in abundance derivations for metal-rich nebulae
• Chemical signatures of formation processes in the stellar populations of simulated galaxies
• Evidence for a non-universal stellar initial mass function from the integrated properties of SDSS galaxies
• Formation of Isolated Dwarf Galaxies with Feedback
• SLUG -- Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies. III: A Suite of Tools for Simulated Photometry, Spectroscopy, and Bayesian Inference with Stochastic Stellar Populations
• The total infrared luminosity may significantly overestimate the star formation rate of recently quenched galaxies
• TiNy Titans: The Role of Dwarf-Dwarf Interactions in the Evolution of Low Mass Galaxies
• Improving the Estimation of Star formation Rates and Stellar Population Ages of High-redshift Galaxies from Broadband Photometry
• K+A Galaxies as the Aftermath of Gas-Rich Mergers: Simulating the Evolution of Galaxies as Seen by Spectroscopic Surveys
• The oxygen abundance calibrations and N/O abundance ratios of ~40,000 SDSS star-forming galaxies
• An observer's view of simulated galaxies: disc-to-total ratios, bars, and (pseudo-)bulges
• Imprints of galaxy evolution on H ii regions Memory of the past uncovered by the CALIFA survey
• First results from the 2dF galaxy redshift survey
• A public catalogue of stellar masses, star formation and metallicity histories and dust content from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using VESPA
• Formation history, structure and dynamics of discs and spheroids in simulated Milky Way mass galaxies
• Hydrodynamic Simulations of Galaxy Formation. I. Dissipation and the Maximum Mass of Galaxies
• Attenuation caused by a distant Isothermal Turbulent Screen
• The VVDS-SWIRE-GALEX-CFHTLS surveys: Physical properties of galaxies at z below 1.2 from photometric data
• The metals-to-dust ratio to very low metallicities using GRB and QSO absorbers; extremely rapid dust formation
• The distribution of gas in the Local Group from constrained cosmological simulations: the case for Andromeda and the Milky Way galaxies
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: constraints on cosmic star-formation history from the cosmic spectrum
• On the (in)variance of the dust-to-metals ratio in galaxies
• Comparing six evolutionary population synthesis models through spectral synthesis on galaxies
• Simulating disc galaxy bulges that are consistent with observed scaling relations
• Where do galaxies end? Comparing measurement techniques of hydrodynamic-simulation galaxies' integrated properties
• The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies in a constrained hydrodynamical simulation: morphological evolution
• The Effect of Environment on Milky Way-mass galaxies in a Constrained Simulation of the Local Group
• Observations of the High Redshift Universe

Cited by in corpus (24)

• First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the galaxy color bimodality
• Optical colours and spectral indices of $z=0.1$ EAGLE galaxies with 3D dust radiative transfer code SKIRT
• Far-infrared and dust properties of present-day galaxies in the EAGLE simulations
• Data release of UV to submm broadband fluxes for simulated galaxies from the EAGLE project
• The origin of the enhanced metallicity of satellite galaxies
• Cosmological constraints from a joint analysis of cosmic growth and expansion
• Stellar mass functions of galaxies, disks and spheroids at z~0.1
• Galactic angular momentum in cosmological zoom-in simulations. I. Disk and bulge components and the galaxy--halo connection
• Reproducing the Universe: a comparison between the EAGLE simulations and the nearby DustPedia galaxy sample
• The fate of the Antennae galaxies
• Do the stellar populations of the brightest two group galaxies depend on the magnitude gap?
• Radiative feedback and cosmic molecular gas: the role of different radiative sources
• Inferring galaxy dark halo properties from visible matter with Machine Learning
• Physical properties of galaxies: toward a consistent comparison between hydrodynamical simulations and SDSS
• The SELGIFS data challenge: generating synthetic observations of CALIFA galaxies from hydrodynamical simulations
• The cosmic spectral energy distribution in the EAGLE simulation
• TODDLERS: A new UV-mm emission library for star-forming regions. 1. Integration with SKIRT and public release
• The edge of galaxy formation III: The effects of warm dark matter on Milky Way satellites and field dwarfs
• Bringing Stellar Evolution & Feedback Together: Summary of proposals from the Lorentz Center Workshop, 2022
• Panchromatic Spectral Energy Distributions of simulated galaxies: results at redshift $z=0$
• COCOA Code for Creating Mock Observations of Star Cluster Models
• Precision Pollution - The effects of enrichment yields and timing on galactic chemical evolution
• The Stellar Chemical Abundances of Simulated Massive Galaxies at $z=2$
• The Nature of High-Redshift Massive Quiescent Galaxies -- Searching for RUBIES-UDS-QG-z7 in FLARES