A Bayesian Population Model for the Observed Dust Attenuation in Galaxies

Abstract

Dust plays a pivotal role in determining the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) of galaxies. Yet our understanding of dust attenuation is limited and our observations suffer from the dust-metallicity-age degeneracy in SED fitting (single galaxies), large individual variances (ensemble measurements), and the difficulty in properly dealing with uncertainties (statistical considerations). In this study, we create a population Bayesian model to rigorously account for correlated variables and non-Gaussian error distributions and demonstrate the improvement over a simple Bayesian model. We employ a flexible 5-D linear interpolation model for the parameters that control dust attenuation curves as a function of stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), metallicity, redshift, and inclination. Our setup allows us to determine the complex relationships between dust attenuation and these galaxy properties simultaneously. Using Prospector fits of nearly 30,000 3D-HST galaxies, we find that the attenuation slope ($n$) flattens with increasing optical depth ($\tau$), though less so than in previous studies. $\tau$ increases strongly with SFR, though when $\log \mathrm{SFR}\lesssim 0$, $\tau$ remains roughly constant over a wide range of stellar masses. Edge-on galaxies tend to have larger $\tau$ than face-on galaxies, but only for $\log M_{\ast }\gtrsim 10$, reflecting the lack of triaxiality for low-mass galaxies. Redshift evolution of dust attenuation is strongest for low-mass, low-SFR galaxies, with higher optical depths but flatter curves at high redshift. Finally, $n$ has a complex relationship with stellar mass, highlighting the intricacies of the star-dust geometry. We have publicly released software (https://github.com/Astropianist/DustE) for users to access our population model.

27 pages, 14 figures, 1 table. Submitted to ApJ

References in corpus (17)

• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• 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
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• UV Luminosity Functions at redshifts z~4 to z~10: 10000 Galaxies from HST Legacy Fields
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• GALEX-SDSS-WISE Legacy Catalog (GSWLC): Star Formation Rates, Stellar Masses and Dust Attenuations of 700,000 Low-redshift Galaxies
• Stellar masses from the CANDELS survey: the GOODS-South and UDS fields
• The Intrinsic Properties of SDSS Galaxies
• A spectrophotometric model applied to cluster galaxies: the WINGS dataset
• Ultraviolet through Infrared Spectral Energy Distributions from 1000 SDSS Galaxies: Dust Attenuation
• How Well Can We Measure Galaxy Dust Attenuation Curves? The Impact of the Assumed Star-Dust Geometry Model in SED Fitting
• Systematic biases in determining dust attenuation curves through galaxy SED fitting
• Reproducing the UVJ Color Distribution of Star-forming Galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 with a Geometric Model of Dust Attenuation
• Variation of the Nebular Dust Attenuation Curve with the Properties of Local Star-forming Galaxies
• On the Impact of Inclination-Dependent Attenuation on Derived Star Formation Histories: Results from Disk Galaxies in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey Fields

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Star formation histories of UV-luminous galaxies at $z\simeq 6.8$: implications for stellar mass assembly at early cosmic times
• Forward modeling of galaxy populations for cosmological redshift distribution inference
• Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Massive Quiescent Galaxies at $\mathrm{z}\sim 0.7$ Linked to Late Time Star Formation
• Diffstar: A Fully Parametric Physical Model for Galaxy Assembly History
• Hierarchical Bayesian inference of photometric redshifts with stellar population synthesis models
• Stochastic Modelling of Star Formation Histories III. Constraints from Physically-Motivated Gaussian Processes
• pop-cosmos: A comprehensive picture of the galaxy population from COSMOS data
• Energy balance SED modelling can be effective at high redshifts regardless of UV-FIR offsets
• More is better: Strong constraints on the stellar properties of LEGA-C z ~ 1 galaxies with Prospector
• Using Rest-Frame Optical and NIR Data from the RAISIN Survey to Explore the Redshift Evolution of Dust Laws in SN Ia Host Galaxies
• Flexible Models for Galaxy Star Formation Histories Both Shift and Scramble the Optical Color-M/L Relationship
• Impact of stellar population synthesis choices on forward modelling-based redshift distribution estimates
• Empirical Dust Attenuation Model Leads to More Realistic UVJ Diagram for TNG100 Galaxies
• Why do semi-analytic models predict higher scatter in the stellar mass-halo mass relation than cosmological hydrodynamic simulations?
• Measuring Dust Attenuation Curves of SINGS/KINGFISH Galaxies Using Swift/UVOT Photometry
• pop-cosmos: Insights from generative modeling of a deep, infrared-selected galaxy population
• Improved SED-Fitting Assumptions Result in Inside-Out Quenching at $z\sim 0.5$ and Quenching at All Radii Simultaneously at $z\sim 1$
• Impact of redshift distribution uncertainties on Lyman-break galaxy cosmological parameter inference
• Identifying and Characterizing the Most Heavily Dust-Obscured Galaxies at $1\le z\le 4$
• GalSBI-SPS: a stellar population synthesis-based galaxy population model for cosmology and galaxy evolution applications