On the Impact of Inclination-Dependent Attenuation on Derived Star-Formation Histories: Results from Disk Galaxies in the GOODS Fields. Doore, K., Eufrasio, R. T., Lehmer, B. D., Monson, E. B., Basu-Zych, A., Garofali, K., & Ptak, A. arXiv:2109.05039 [astro-ph], September, 2021. arXiv: 2109.05039
On the Impact of Inclination-Dependent Attenuation on Derived Star-Formation Histories: Results from Disk Galaxies in the GOODS Fields [link]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
We develop and implement an inclination-dependent attenuation prescription for spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting and study its impact on derived star-formation histories. We apply our prescription within the SED fitting code Lightning to a clean sample of 82, z = 0.21-1.35 disk-dominated galaxies in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) North and South fields. To compare our inclination-dependent attenuation prescription with more traditional fitting prescriptions, we also fit the SEDs with the inclination-independent Calzetti et al. (2000) attenuation curve. From this comparison, we find that fits to a subset of 58, z \textless 0.7 galaxies in our sample, utilizing the Calzetti et al. (2000) prescription, recover similar trends with inclination as the inclination-dependent fits for the FUV-band attenuation and recent star-formation rates. However, we find a difference between prescriptions in the optical attenuation (AV) that is strongly correlated with inclination (p-value \textless 10\textasciicircum-10). For more face-on galaxies, with i \textless 50 deg, (edge-on, i = 90 deg), the average derived AV is 0.30 +/- 0.10 magnitudes lower (0.55 +/- 0.15 magnitudes higher) for the inclination-dependent model compared to traditional methods. Further, the ratio of stellar masses between prescriptions also has a significant (p-value \textless 10\textasciicircum-2) trend with inclination. For i = 0-65 deg, stellar masses are systematically consistent between fits, with log(Mstar_inc/Mstar_Calzetti) = -0.05 +/- 0.03 dex, and scatter of 0.11 dex. However, for i = 80-90 deg, derived stellar masses are lower for the Calzetti et al. (2000) fits by an average factor of 0.17 +/- 0.02 dex, and scatter of 0.13 dex. Therefore, these results suggest that SED fitting assuming the Calzetti et al. (2000) attenuation law potentially underestimates stellar masses in highly inclined disk-dominated galaxies.
@article{doore_impact_2021,
	title = {On the {Impact} of {Inclination}-{Dependent} {Attenuation} on {Derived} {Star}-{Formation} {Histories}: {Results} from {Disk} {Galaxies} in the {GOODS} {Fields}},
	shorttitle = {On the {Impact} of {Inclination}-{Dependent} {Attenuation} on {Derived} {Star}-{Formation} {Histories}},
	url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/2109.05039},
	abstract = {We develop and implement an inclination-dependent attenuation prescription for spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting and study its impact on derived star-formation histories. We apply our prescription within the SED fitting code Lightning to a clean sample of 82, z = 0.21-1.35 disk-dominated galaxies in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) North and South fields. To compare our inclination-dependent attenuation prescription with more traditional fitting prescriptions, we also fit the SEDs with the inclination-independent Calzetti et al. (2000) attenuation curve. From this comparison, we find that fits to a subset of 58, z {\textless} 0.7 galaxies in our sample, utilizing the Calzetti et al. (2000) prescription, recover similar trends with inclination as the inclination-dependent fits for the FUV-band attenuation and recent star-formation rates. However, we find a difference between prescriptions in the optical attenuation (AV) that is strongly correlated with inclination (p-value {\textless} 10{\textasciicircum}-10). For more face-on galaxies, with i {\textless} 50 deg, (edge-on, i = 90 deg), the average derived AV is 0.30 +/- 0.10 magnitudes lower (0.55 +/- 0.15 magnitudes higher) for the inclination-dependent model compared to traditional methods. Further, the ratio of stellar masses between prescriptions also has a significant (p-value {\textless} 10{\textasciicircum}-2) trend with inclination. For i = 0-65 deg, stellar masses are systematically consistent between fits, with log(Mstar\_inc/Mstar\_Calzetti) = -0.05 +/- 0.03 dex, and scatter of 0.11 dex. However, for i = 80-90 deg, derived stellar masses are lower for the Calzetti et al. (2000) fits by an average factor of 0.17 +/- 0.02 dex, and scatter of 0.13 dex. Therefore, these results suggest that SED fitting assuming the Calzetti et al. (2000) attenuation law potentially underestimates stellar masses in highly inclined disk-dominated galaxies.},
	urldate = {2021-10-25},
	journal = {arXiv:2109.05039 [astro-ph]},
	author = {Doore, Keith and Eufrasio, Rafael T. and Lehmer, Bret D. and Monson, Erik B. and Basu-Zych, Antara and Garofali, Kristen and Ptak, Andrew},
	month = sep,
	year = {2021},
	note = {arXiv: 2109.05039},
	keywords = {Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies},
}

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