Beyond UVJ: More Efficient Selection of Quiescent Galaxies With UV / Mid-IR Fluxes. (arXiv:1907.02970v1 [astro-ph.GA])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Leja_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">Joel Leja</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Tacchella_S/0/1/0/all/0/1">Sandro Tacchella</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Conroy_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">Charlie Conroy</a>
The UVJ color-color diagram is a popular and efficient method to distinguish
between quiescent and star-forming galaxies through their rest-frame $U-V$ vs.
$V-J$ colors. Here we explore the information content of this color-color space
using the Bayesian inference machine Prospector. We fit the same physical model
to two datasets: (i) UVJ fluxes alone, and (ii) full UV-mid IR (MIR) broadband
SEDs from the 3D-HST survey. Notably this model uses both nonparametric SFHs
and a flexible dust attenuation curve, both of which have the potential to
`break’ the typical correlations observed in UVJ color-color space. Instead,
these fits confirm observed trends between UVJ colors and observed galaxy
properties, including specific star formation rate (sSFR), dust attenuation,
stellar age, and stellar metallicity. They also demonstrate that UVJ colors do
not, on their own, constrain stellar age or metallicity; the observed trends in
the UVJ diagram are instead driven by galaxy scaling relationships and thus
will evolve with cosmological time. We also show that UVJ colors ‘saturate’
below $log(mathrm{sSFR/yr}^{-1})lesssim -10.5$, i.e. changing sSFR no longer
produces substantial changes in UVJ colors. We show that far-UV and/or MIR
fluxes continue to correlate with sSFR down to low sSFRs and can be used in
color-color diagrams to efficiently target galaxies with much lower levels of
ongoing star formation. We provide selection criteria in these new color-color
spaces as a function of desired sample sSFR.
The UVJ color-color diagram is a popular and efficient method to distinguish
between quiescent and star-forming galaxies through their rest-frame $U-V$ vs.
$V-J$ colors. Here we explore the information content of this color-color space
using the Bayesian inference machine Prospector. We fit the same physical model
to two datasets: (i) UVJ fluxes alone, and (ii) full UV-mid IR (MIR) broadband
SEDs from the 3D-HST survey. Notably this model uses both nonparametric SFHs
and a flexible dust attenuation curve, both of which have the potential to
`break’ the typical correlations observed in UVJ color-color space. Instead,
these fits confirm observed trends between UVJ colors and observed galaxy
properties, including specific star formation rate (sSFR), dust attenuation,
stellar age, and stellar metallicity. They also demonstrate that UVJ colors do
not, on their own, constrain stellar age or metallicity; the observed trends in
the UVJ diagram are instead driven by galaxy scaling relationships and thus
will evolve with cosmological time. We also show that UVJ colors ‘saturate’
below $log(mathrm{sSFR/yr}^{-1})lesssim -10.5$, i.e. changing sSFR no longer
produces substantial changes in UVJ colors. We show that far-UV and/or MIR
fluxes continue to correlate with sSFR down to low sSFRs and can be used in
color-color diagrams to efficiently target galaxies with much lower levels of
ongoing star formation. We provide selection criteria in these new color-color
spaces as a function of desired sample sSFR.
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