More is better: Strong constraints on the stellar properties of LEGA-C z ~ 1 galaxies with Prospector

Abstract

We present the stellar properties of 2908 galaxies at 0.6 < z < 1.0 from the LEGA-C survey. We emphasize the importance of high signal-to-noise, high spectral resolution spectroscopy in the inference of stellar population properties of galaxies. We estimate the galaxy properties with the SED fitting code Prospector, by fitting spectroscopy and broadband photometry together, drawn from the LEGA-C DR3 and UltraVISTA catalogs respectively. We report a positive correlation between light-weighted ages and stellar velocity dispersion (${\sigma }_{\star }$). The trend with ${\sigma }_{\star }$ is weaker for the mass-weighted ages and stellar metallicity ($Z_{\star }$). On average, quiescent galaxies are characterized by high $Z_{\star }$, they are \sim 1.1 Gyr older, less dusty, with steeper dust attenuation slopes compared to star-forming galaxies. Conversely, star-forming galaxies are characterized by significantly higher dust optical depths and shallower (grayer) attenuation slopes. Low mass (high mass) star-forming galaxies have lower (higher) $Z_{\star }$, while their stellar populations are on average younger (older). A key pragmatic result of our study is that a linear-space metallicity prior is preferable to a logarithmic-space one when using photometry alone, as the latter biases the posteriors downward. Spectroscopy greatly improves stellar population measurements and is required to provide meaningful constraints on age, metallicity, and other properties. Pairing spectroscopy with photometry helps resolving the dust-age-metallicity degeneracy, yielding more accurate mass- and light-weighted ages, with ages inferred from photometry alone suffering such large uncertainties. Stellar metallicities are constrained by our spectroscopy, but precise measurements remain challenging (and impossible with photometry alone), particularly in the absence of Mg and Fe lines redward of 5000 $\mathring{A}$ in the observed spectrum.

Accepted, 24 pages, 17 figures

References in corpus (72)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• 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 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
• Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory
• A Highly Consistent Framework for the Evolution of the Star-Forming "Main Sequence" from z~0-6
• Improving the full spectrum fitting method: accurate convolution with Gauss-Hermite functions
• A simple model to interpret the ultraviolet, optical and infrared emission from galaxies
• Dust Masses, PAH Abundances, and Starlight Intensities in the SINGS Galaxy Sample
• Detection of quiescent galaxies in a bicolor sequence from z=0-2
• Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis Version 2.1: construction, observational verification and new results
• Constraining the Low-Mass Slope of the Star Formation Sequence at 0.5<z<2.5
• The Herschel view of the dominant mode of galaxy growth from z=4 to the present day
• UltraVISTA: a new ultra-deep near-infrared survey in COSMOS
• Stellar Population Inference with Prospector
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: instrument specification and target selection
• COSMOS2020: A panchromatic view of the Universe to $z\sim 10$ from two complementary catalogs
• The Atlas3D Project - XXX. Star formation histories and stellar population scaling relations of early-type galaxies
• The MOSFIRE Deep Evolution Field (MOSDEF) Survey: Rest-Frame Optical Spectroscopy for ~1500 H-Selected Galaxies at 1.37 < z < 3.8
• An Objective Definition for the Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies
• 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
• What do we learn from IRAC observations of galaxies at 2 < z < 3.5?
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS): Subaru Observations of the HST COSMOS Field
• Full spectrum fitting with photometry in pPXF: stellar population versus dynamical masses, non-parametric star formation history and metallicity for 3200 LEGA-C galaxies at redshift z~0.8
• Recovering galaxy star formation and metallicity histories from spectra using VESPA
• The Dust Attenuation Law in Galaxies
• The FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE): ultraviolet to far-infrared catalogs, medium-bandwidth photometric redshifts with improved accuracy, stellar masses, and confirmation of quiescent galaxies to z~3.5
• An Atlas of Color-selected Quiescent Galaxies at $z>3$ in Public $JWST$ Fields
• Firefly (Fitting IteRativEly For Likelihood analYsis): a full spectral fitting code
• Charting the evolution of the ages and metallicities of massive galaxies since z=0.7
• The Art of Measuring Physical Parameters in Galaxies: A Critical Assessment of Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting Techniques
• How Well Can We Measure the Stellar Mass of a Galaxy: The Impact of the Assumed Star Formation History Model in SED Fitting
• Fast, Slow, Early, Late: Quenching Massive Galaxies at z~0.8
• ProSpect: Generating Spectral Energy Distributions with Complex Star Formation and Metallicity Histories
• Green Valley Galaxies
• Stellar populations from spectroscopy of a large sample of quiescent galaxies at z > 1: Measuring the contribution of progenitor bias to early size growth
• Non-parametric Star Formation History Reconstruction with Gaussian Processes I: Counting Major Episodes of Star Formation
• ZFOURGE/CANDELS: On the Evolution of M* Galaxy Progenitors from z=3 to 0.5
• The Assembly Histories of Quiescent Galaxies Since z=0.7 from Absorption Line Spectroscopy
• The VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz Large Project: Evolution of specific star formation rates out to $z\sim 5$
• A New Census of the 0.2< z <3.0 Universe, Part II: The Star-Forming Sequence
• Predicting Quiescence: The Dependence of Specific Star Formation Rate on Galaxy Size and Central Density at 0.5<z<2.5
• Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS): SED Fitting in the D10-COSMOS Field and the Evolution of the Stellar Mass Function and SFR-$M_{\star }$ relation
• Old and young stellar populations in DustPedia galaxies and their role in dust heating
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Global stellar populations on the size-mass plane
• Beyond UVJ: More Efficient Selection of Quiescent Galaxies With UV / Mid-IR Fluxes
• The Dependence of Theoretical Synthetic Spectra on $\alpha$-enhancement in Young, Binary Stellar Populations
• pyFIT3D and pyPipe3D -- The new version of the Integral Field Spectroscopy data analysis pipeline
• Introducing piXedfit -- a Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting Code Designed for Resolved Sources
• High redshift JWST predictions from IllustrisTNG: II. Galaxy line and continuum spectral indices and dust attenuation curves
• The Strength of the 2175Å Feature in the Attenuation Curves of Galaxies at 0.1<z<3
• Elemental Abundances and Ages of $z\sim 0.7$ Quiescent Galaxies on the Mass-Size Plane: Implication for Chemical Enrichment and Star-Formation Quenching
• Matching the Evolution of the Stellar Mass Function Using Log-normal Star Formation Histories
• Star-forming early- and quiescent late-type galaxies in the local Universe
• Quenching and the UVJ diagram in the SIMBA cosmological simulation
• The Fundamental Plane in the LEGA-C Survey: unraveling the $M/L$ variations of massive star-forming and quiescent galaxies at $z\sim 0.8$
• Beyond UVJ: Color Selection of Galaxies in the JWST Era
• High-resolution, 3D radiative transfer modelling III. The DustPedia barred galaxies
• Early JWST imaging reveals strong optical and NIR color gradients in galaxies at $z\sim 2$ driven mostly by dust
• A Bayesian Population Model for the Observed Dust Attenuation in Galaxies
• From Carbon to Cobalt: Chemical compositions and ages of $z\sim 0.7$ quiescent galaxies
• Stellar Populations With Optical Spectra: Deep Learning vs. Popular Spectrum Fitting Codes
• On the origin of star formation quenching in massive galaxies at $z\gtrsim 3$ in the cosmological simulations IllustrisTNG
• Stellar mass as the "glocal" driver of galaxies' stellar population properties
• Towards precise galaxy evolution: a comparison between spectral indices of $z\sim 1$ galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulation and the LEGA-C survey
• Dust Attenuation Curves at z $\sim$ 0.8 from LEGA-C: Precise Constraints on the Slope and 2175$\mathring{A}$ Bump Strength
• Stellar Kinematics and Environment at z~0.8 in the LEGA-C Survey: Massive, Slow-Rotators are Built First in Overdense Environments
• Spatially resolved mock observations of stellar kinematics: full radiative transfer treatment of simulated galaxies
• Resolved Stellar Mass Maps of Galaxies in the Hubble Frontier Fields: Evidence for Mass Dependency in Environmental Quenching
• The PAU Survey: galaxy stellar population properties estimates with narrowband data
• Empirical Dust Attenuation Model Leads to More Realistic UVJ Diagram for TNG100 Galaxies
• [Mg/Fe] and variable initial mass function: Revision of [$\alpha$/Fe] for massive galaxies

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Simulation-based inference of galaxy properties from JWST pixels
• Spatially resolved stellar populations and emission lines properties in nearby galaxies with J-PLUS -- I. Method and first results for the M101 group
• Even redder than we knew: color and $A_{\mathrm{V}}$ evolution up to $z=2.5$ from JWST/NIRCam photometry
• LEGA-C stellar populations scaling relations. I: Chemo-archaeological downsizing trends at z~0.7
• The LEGA-C galaxy survey: multiple quenching channels for quiescent galaxies at $z\sim 1$
• LEGA-C stellar populations scaling relations. II: Dissecting mass-complete archaeological trends and their evolution since z~0.7 with LEGA-C and SDSS
• SE3D: Building a radiative transfer emulator to fit panchromatic resolved galaxy observations with 3D models of dust and stars
• Resolving dust and Lyα emission in a lensed galaxy at the epoch of reionization with JWST/CANUCS