Removing biases in resolved stellar mass-maps of galaxy disks through successive Bayesian marginalization

Abstract

Stellar masses of galaxies are frequently obtained by fitting stellar population synthesis models to galaxy photometry or spectra. The state of the art method resolves spatial structures within a galaxy to assess the total stellar mass content. In comparison to unresolved studies, resolved methods yield, on average, higher fractions of stellar mass for galaxies. In this work we improve the current method in order to mitigate a bias related to the resolved spatial distribution derived for the mass. The bias consists in an apparent filamentary mass distribution, and a spatial coincidence between mass structures and dust lanes near spiral arms. The improved method is based on iterative Bayesian marginalization, through a new algorithm we have named Bayesian Successive Priors (BSP). We have applied BSP to M 51, and to a pilot sample of 90 spiral galaxies from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey. By comparing quantitatively both methods, we find that the average fraction of stellar mass missed by unresolved studies is only half than previously thought. In contrast with the previous method, the output BSP mass-maps bear a better resemblance to near infrared images.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (75)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• Star Formation in AEGIS Field Galaxies since z=1.1 : The Dominance of Gradually Declining Star Formation, and the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Star Formation Efficiency in Nearby Galaxies: Measuring Where Gas Forms Stars Effectively
• 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
• Stellar mass-to-light ratios and the Tully-Fisher relation
• A Simple Model for the Absorption of Starlight by Dust in Galaxies
• Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory
• K-corrections and filter transformations in the ultraviolet, optical, and near infrared
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• The reversal of the star formation-density relation in the distant universe
• Multiwavelength study of massive galaxies at z~2. I. Star formation and galaxy growth
• The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
• Adaptive spatial binning of integral-field spectroscopic data using Voronoi tessellations
• SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey: I. Survey presentation
• Bayesian photometric redshift estimation
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. XIII. SBF Distance Catalog and the Three-Dimensional Structure of the Virgo Cluster
• Metallicities of 0.3<z<1.0 Galaxies in the GOODS-North Field
• The Radial Acceleration Relation in Rotationally Supported Galaxies
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly: Stellar Mass Estimates
• Absolute Calibration of the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Resolved stellar mass maps of galaxies. I: method and implications for global mass estimates
• Optical Spectroscopy and Nebular Oxygen Abundances of the Spitzer/SINGS Galaxies
• The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S^4G)
• Evidence for TP-AGB stars in high redshift galaxies, and their effect on deriving stellar population parameters
• Smooth(er) Stellar Mass Maps in CANDELS: Constraints on the Longevity of Clumps in High-redshift Star-forming Galaxies
• Star formation rates and masses of z ~ 2 galaxies from multicolour photometry
• Galaxy Masses
• Reconstructing the stellar mass distributions of galaxies using S4G IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 micron images: II. The conversion from light to mass
• The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S${}^4$G): Precise Stellar Mass Distributions from Automated Dust Correction at 3.6 microns
• Color--Mass-to-Light Ratio Relations for Disk Galaxies
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: the B-band attenuation of bulge and disc light and the implied cosmic dust and stellar mass densities
• Near-IR and Optical Morphology of Spiral Galaxies
• The DiskMass Survey. I. Overview
• Reconstructing the stellar mass distributions of galaxies using S4G IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 micron images: I. Correcting for contamination by PAH, hot dust, and intermediate age stars
• The Mid-Infrared Extinction Law in the Ophiuchus, Perseus, and Serpens Molecular Clouds
• The DiskMass Survey. VII. The distribution of luminous and dark matter in spiral galaxies
• How well can we really estimate the stellar masses of galaxies from broadband photometry?
• On the Mass-to-Light ratio and the Initial Mass Function in disc galaxies
• New Colour-Mass to Light Relations: the role of the Asymptotic Giant Branch phase and of interstellar dust
• From Spitzer Galaxy Photometry to Tully-Fisher Distances
• The Star Formation History of the Hubble Sequence: Spatially Resolved Colour Distributions of Intermediate Redshift Galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field
• The Intrinsic Properties of SDSS Galaxies
• The integrated stellar content of dark matter halos
• Evolution of the Most Massive Galaxies to z=0.6: I. A New Method for Physical Parameter Estimation
• Stellar mass-to-light ratios from galaxy spectra: how accurate can they be?
• Bayesian methods of astronomical source extraction
• Spatially resolved stellar, dust and gas properties of the post-interacting Whirlpool Galaxy system
• Spiral density wave triggering of star formation in SA and SAB galaxies
• Missing Stellar Mass in SED Fitting: Spatially Unresolved Photometry can Underestimate Galaxy Masses
• Fundamental stellar parameters and metallicities from Bayesian spectroscopy. Application to low- and high-resolution spectra
• A wide search for obscured Active Galactic Nuclei using XMM-Newton and WISE
• Tracing the Dynamics of Disk Galaxies with Optical and IR Surface Photometry: Color Gradients in M99
• Spatially Resolved Galaxy Star Formation and its Environmental Dependence I
• Young red supergiants and the near infrared light appearance of disk galaxies
• Dark and Baryonic Matter in Bright Spiral Galaxies: I.Near-infrared and Optical Broadband Surface Photometry of 30 Galaxies
• Gas and stellar spiral arms and their offsets in the grand-design spiral galaxy M51
• The Star Formation History of Galaxies Measured from Individual Pixels. I. The Hubble Deep Field North
• On the recovery of galaxy properties from SED fitting solutions
• Stellar Populations in NGC 4038/39 (The Antennae): Exploring A Galaxy Merger Pixel-by-Pixel
• Signatures of long-lived spiral patterns
• Structure Through Colour: A Pixel Approach Towards Understanding Galaxies
• An Observational Estimate for the Mean Secular Evolution Rate in Spiral Galaxies
• The local stellar luminosity function and mass-to-light ratio in the NIR
• UV-Optical Pixel Maps of Face-On Spiral Galaxies -- Clues for Dynamics and Star Formation Histories
• Statistics of young starforming complexes in spiral galaxies using NIR photometry
• Comparing Dynamical and Stellar Population Mass-to-Light Ratio Estimates
• Outer and inner mass distributions of the irregular galaxies UGC 4284 and UGC 11861: Constraining the baryonic content through stellar population synthesis studies
• Disk Mass-to-Light ratio distribution from stellar population synthesis: Application to rotation curve decomposition of NGC 5278 (KPG 390A)

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program: A Mass-Dependent Slope of the Galaxy Size-Mass Relation at $z<1$
• Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100pc scales in M51
• Galaxy Sizes Since $z=2$ from the Perspective of Stellar Mass Distribution within Galaxies
• How proper are Bayesian models in the astronomical literature?
• The MBHBM${}^{\star }$ Project -- II. Molecular Gas Kinematics in the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 3593 Reveal a Supermassive Black Hole
• Resolved and Integrated Stellar Masses in the SDSS-IV/MaNGA Survey, Paper II: Applications of PCA-based stellar mass estimates
• Solution to the conflict between the resolved and unresolved galaxy stellar mass estimation from the perspective of JWST
• A systematic search for galaxy protocluster cores at the transition epoch of their star formation activity
• The resolved star formation history of M51a through successive Bayesian marginalization
• A high-resolution extinction mapping technique for face-on disc galaxies
• Mass content of UGC 6446 and UGC 7524 through HI rotation curves: deriving the stellar discs from stellar population synthesis models
• On the Thermally Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch Contribution to the Light of Nearby Disk Galaxies
• General circular velocity relation of a test particle in a 3D gravitational potential: application to the rotation curves analysis and total mass determination of UGC 8490 and UGC 9753
• On the ages of the stellar populations of galaxies at $z=0.1$-7