The stellar populations of quiescent ultra-diffuse galaxies from optical to mid-infrared spectral energy distribution fitting

Abstract

We use spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting to place constraints on the stellar population properties of 29 quiescent ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) across different environments. We use the fully Bayesian routine PROSPECTOR coupled with archival data in the optical, near, and mid-infrared from Spitzer and WISE under the assumption of an exponentially declining star formation history. We recover the stellar mass, age, metallicity, dust content, star formation time scales and photometric redshifts (photo-zs) of the UDGs studied. Using the mid-infrared data, we probe the existence of dust in UDGs. Although its presence cannot be confirmed, we find that the inclusion of small amounts of dust in the models brings the stellar populations closer to those reported with spectroscopy. Additionally, we fit the redshifts of all galaxies. We find a high accuracy in recovering photo-zs compared to spectroscopy, allowing us to provide new photo-z estimates for three field UDGs with unknown distances. We find evidence of a stellar population dependence on the environment, with quiescent field UDGs being systematically younger than their cluster counterparts. Lastly, we find that all UDGs lie below the mass--metallicity relation for normal dwarf galaxies. Particularly, the globular cluster (GC)-poor UDGs are consistently more metal-rich than GC-rich ones, suggesting that GC-poor UDGs may be puffed-up dwarfs, while most GC-rich UDGs are better explained by a failed galaxy scenario. As a byproduct, we show that two galaxies in our sample, NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4, share equivalent stellar population properties, with ages consistent with 8 Gyr. This finding supports formation scenarios where the galaxies were formed together.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 20 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, and 4 appendices

References in corpus (41)

• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• 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
• Forty-Seven Milky Way-Sized, Extremely Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• Evolution of asymptotic giant branch stars I. Updated synthetic TP-AGB models and their basic calibration
• Evolutionary stellar population synthesis with MILES - II. Scaled-solar and α-enhanced models
• NIHAO XI: Formation of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies by outflows
• A High Stellar Velocity Dispersion and ~100 Globular Clusters for the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44
• Extensive Globular Cluster Systems Associated with Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XXX. Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies and their Globular Cluster Systems
• The WISE Extended Source Catalogue (WXSC) I: The 100 Largest Galaxies
• The nearest ultra diffuse galaxy: UGC2162
• A trail of dark matter-free galaxies from a bullet dwarf collision
• Globular Clusters in Coma Cluster Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs): Evidence for Two Types of UDG?
• The ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 with MUSE: II. The population of DF2: stars, clusters and planetary nebulae
• The Dependence of Theoretical Synthetic Spectra on $\alpha$-enhancement in Young, Binary Stellar Populations
• Spitzer Local Volume Legacy (LVL) SEDs and Physical Properties
• A population of faint low surface brightness galaxies in the Perseus cluster core
• The evolution of ultra-diffuse galaxies in nearby galaxy clusters from the Kapteyn IAC WEAVE INT Clusters Survey ($\text{KIWICS}$)
• Discovery of a red ultra-diffuse galaxy in a nearby void based on its globular cluster luminosity function
• Galaxies lacking dark matter produced by close encounters in a cosmological simulation
• A Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance of $22.1\pm 1.2$ Mpc to the Dark Matter Deficient Galaxy NGC1052-DF2 from 40 Orbits of Hubble Space Telescope Imaging
• Observational constraints on stellar feedback in dwarf galaxies
• Quiescent Ultra-diffuse galaxies in the field originating from backsplash orbits
• Implications for Galaxy Formation Models from Observations of Globular Clusters around Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies
• Elemental Abundances in M31: The Kinematics and Chemical Evolution of Dwarf Spheroidal Satellite Galaxies
• Dark Matter Deficient Galaxies Produced Via High-velocity Galaxy Collisions In High-resolution Numerical Simulations
• Extreme chemical abundance ratio suggesting an exotic origin for an ultra-diffuse galaxy
• A spectroscopic study of MATLAS-2019 with MUSE: an ultra-diffuse galaxy with an excess of old globular clusters
• The Distribution of Ultra-Diffuse and Ultra-Compact Galaxies in the Frontier Fields
• An Ultra diffuse Galaxy in the NGC 5846 group from the VEGAS survey
• Dark Matter Deficient Galaxies And Their Member Star Clusters Form Simultaneously During High-velocity Galaxy Collisions In 1.25 pc Resolution Simulations
• On the Stellar Kinematics and Mass of the Virgo Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy VCC 1287
• Predicted MOND velocity dispersions for a catalog of ultra-diffuse galaxies in group environments
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Demonstrating the power of WISE in the study of Galaxy Groups to $z<0.1$
• A recently quenched isolated dwarf galaxy outside of the Local Group environment
• Still at Odds with Conventional Galaxy Evolution: The Star Formation History of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44
• Mass-metallicity relation of dwarf galaxies and its dependency on time: clues from resolved systems and comparison with massive galaxies
• Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the IC1459 Group from the VEGAS Survey
• Lessons on Star-forming Ultra-diffuse Galaxies from The Stacked Spectra of Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Age and Metallicity of galaxies in different environments of the Coma supercluster

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Keck Spectroscopy of the Coma Cluster Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy Y358: Dynamical Mass in a Wider Context
• The large-scale structure of globular clusters in the NGC 1052 group