On the precision of full-spectrum fitting of simple stellar populations. II. The dependence on star cluster mass in the wavelength range 0.3-5.0 $μ$m
Paul Goudfrooij, Randa Asa'd
备注：
27 pages (incl. 8-page Appendix), 31 figures, published by MNRAS. Note: as of Jan 8, 2021, the bulk of the concluding Summary section is missing in the published version at MNRAS. They have been notified. This arXiv version is complete. Model spectra are being made available through CDS at http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?VI/157
In this second paper of a series on the accuracy and precision of the determination of age and metallicity of simple stellar populations (SSPs) by means of the full spectrum fitting technique, we study the influence of star cluster mass through stochastic fluctuations of the number of stars near the top of the stellar mass function, which dominate the flux in certain wavelength regimes depending on the age. We consider SSP models based on the Padova isochrones, spanning the age range 7.0 $\leq$ log (age/yr) $\leq$ 10.1. Simulated spectra of star clusters in the mass range $10^4 \leq M/M_{\odot} < 10^6$ are compared with SSP model spectra to determine best-fit ages and metallicities using a full-spectrum fitting routine in four wavelength regimes: the blue optical (0.35-0.70 $μ$m), the red optical (0.6-1.0 $μ$m), the near-IR (1.0-2.5 $μ$m), and the mid-IR (2.5-5.0 $μ$m). We compare the power of each wavelength regime in terms of both the overall precision of age and metallicity determination, and of its dependence on cluster mass. We also study the relevance of spectral resolution in this context by utilizing two different spectral libraries (BaSeL and BT-Settl). We highlight the power of the mid-IR regime in terms of identifying young massive clusters in dusty star forming regions in external galaxies. The spectra of the simulated star clusters and SSPs are made available online to enable follow-up studies by the community.
In this fourth paper of a series on the precision of ages of stellar populations obtained through the full-spectrum fitting technique, we present a first systematic analysis that compare the age, metallicity and reddening of star clusters obtained from resolved and unresolved data (namely colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) and integrated-light spectroscopy) using the same sets of isochrones. We investigate the results obtained with both Padova isochrones and MIST isochrones. We find that there generally is a good agreement between the ages derived from CMDs and integrated spectra. However, for m…
In this work we present our experience from the first year of theSkyNet Pan-STARRS1 Optical Galaxy Survey (POGS) project. This citizen-scientist driven research project uses the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) middleware and thousands of Internet-connected computers to measure the resolved galactic structural properties of ~100,000 low redshift galaxies. We are combining the spectral coverage of GALEX, Pan-STARRS1, SDSS, and WISE to generate a value-added, multi-wavelength UV-optical-NIR galaxy atlas for the nearby Universe. Specifically, we are measuring physical pa…
We investigate the precision of the ages and metallicities of 21,000 mock simple stellar populations (SSPs) determined through full-spectrum fitting. The mock SSPs cover an age range of 6.8 $<$ log (age/yr) $<$ 10.2, for three wavelength ranges in the optical regime, using both Padova and MIST isochrone models. Random noise is added to the model spectra to achieve S/N ratios between 10 to 100 per wavelength pixel. We find that for S/N $\geq$ 50, this technique can yield ages of SSPs to an overall precision of $Δ\,\mbox{log(age/yr)} \sim 0.1$ for ages in the ranges 7.0 $\leq$ log (age/yr) $\leq…
The pixel-to-pixel spectral fitting technique is often used in studies of stellar populations. It enables the user to infer several parameters from integrated light spectra such as ages and chemical abundances. In this paper, we examine the question of how the inferred parameters change with the choice of wavelength range used. We have employed two different libraries of integrated light spectra of globular clusters (GCs) from the literature and fitted them to stellar population models using the code Starlight. We performed tests using different regions of the spectra to infer reddening, ages,…
Context. Currently galactic exploration is being revolutionized by a flow of new data: Gaia provides measurements of stellar distances and kinematics; growing numbers of spectroscopic surveys provide values of stellar atmospheric parameters and abundances of elements; and Kepler and K2 missions provide asteroseismic information for an increasing number of stars. Aims. In this work we aim to determine stellar distances and ages using Gaia and spectrophotometric data in a consistent way. We estimate precisions of age and distance determinations with Gaia end-of-mission and TGAS parallax precisio…
In this third paper of a series on the precision of obtaining ages of stellar populations using the full spectrum fitting technique, we examine the precision of this technique in deriving possible age spreads within a star cluster. We test how well an internal age spread can be resolved as a function of cluster age, population mass fraction, and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. For this test, the two ages (Age (SSP1) and Age (SSP2)) are free parameters along with the mass fraction of SSP1. We perform the analysis on 118,800 mock star clusters covering all ages in the range 6.8 < log (age/yr) < 10.…
We present Starduster, a supervised deep learning model that predicts the multi-wavelength SED from galaxy geometry parameters and star formation history by emulating dust radiative transfer simulations. The model is comprised of three specifically designed neural networks, which take into account the features of dust attenuation and emission. We utilise the Skirt radiative transfer simulation to produce data for the training data of neural networks. Each neural network can be trained using ~ 4000 - 5000 samples. Compared with the direct results of the Skirt simulation, our deep learning model…
Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting of stellar population synthesis models is an important and popular way to constrain the physical parameters ---e.g., the ages, metallicities, masses for stellar population analysis. The previous works suggest that both blue-bands and red-bands photometry works for the SED-fitting. Either blue-domained or red-domained SED-fitting usually lead to the unreliable or biased results. Meanwhile, it seems that extending the wavelength coverage could be helpful. Since the Galaxy Evolution Explorer ({\it GALEX}) and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) pr…
The combination of spectroscopic stellar metallicities and resolved star color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) has the potential to constrain the entire star formation and chemical enrichment history (SFH) of a galaxy better than fitting CMDs alone (as is most common in SFH studies using resolved stellar populations). In this paper, two approaches for incorporating external metallicity information into color-magnitude diagram fitting techniques are presented. Overall, the joint fitting of metallicity and CMD information can increase the precision on measured age-metallicity relationships and star fo…
We present the capabilities of Galapagos--2 and Galfitm in the context of fitting 2-component profiles to galaxies, on the way to providing complete multi-band, multi-component fitting of large samples of galaxies in future surveys. We release both the code and the fit results to 234,239 objects from the DR3 of the Gama survey, a sample significantly deeper than previous works. We use stringent tests on both simulated and real data, as well as comparison to public catalogues to evaluate the advantages of using multi-band over single-band data. We show that multi-band fitting using Galfitm prov…
At the core of the standard cosmological model lies the assumption that the redshift of distant galaxies is independent of photon wavelength. This invariance of cosmological redshift with wavelength is routinely found in all galaxy spectra with a precision of $Δ$z~10$^{-4}$. The combined use of approximately half a million high-quality galaxy spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) allows us to explore this invariance down to a nominal precision in redshift of one part per million (statistical). Our analysis is performed over the redshift interval 0.02<z<0.25. We use the centroids of …
This research focuses on identifying high redshift galaxies from LABOCA(LArge APEX BOlometer CAmera) and SPIRE(The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver) maps towards proto-cluster candidates initially selected from the SPT (South pole telescope) survey. Based on the Multi-Gaussian fitting algorithm, we cross-match all significant LABOCA sources at SPIRE wavelengths based on their coordinates and signal to noise ratio to derive their photometry at 250, 350, 500 and 870 $μm$. We use this information to calculate a photometric redshift for SPT sources towards cluster fields. The code was dev…
From Detection to Host Galaxy Identification: Precision Continuous Gravitational Wave Localization with a Few Anchor Pulsars
Institute for Frontier in Astronomy and Astrophysics & Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学前沿交叉学科研究院与文理学院）；School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学物理与天文学院）；National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute（韩国天文与空间科学研究所）
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Observations of metal absorption systems in the spectra of distant quasars allow to constrain a possible variation of the fine-structure constant throughout the history of the Universe. Such a test poses utmost demands on the wavelength accuracy and previous studies were limited by systematics in the spectrograph wavelength calibration. A substantial advance in the field is therefore expected from the new ultra-stable high-resolution spectrograph Espresso, recently installed at the VLT. In preparation of the fundamental physics related part of the Espresso GTO program, we present a thorough as…
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A cryogenic achromatic half-wave plate (HWP) for submillimetre astronomical polarimetry has been designed, manufactured, tested, and deployed in the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). The design is based on the five-slab Pancharatnam recipe and it works in the wavelength range 200-600 micron, making it the broadest-band HWP built to date at (sub)millimetre wavelengths. The frequency behaviour of the HWP has been fully characterised at room and cryogenic temperatures with incoherent radiation from a polarising Fourier transform spectrometer. We deve…
