GalMass: A Smartphone Application for Estimating Galaxy Masses

TL;DR

GalMass is a smartphone app that estimates various galaxy masses and gas fractions across redshifts using empirical models, aiding researchers in galaxy property analysis.

Contribution

This paper introduces GalMass, a novel Android application that provides quick estimates of galaxy masses and gas fractions using established empirical models.

Findings

Provides mass estimates as a function of redshift

Uses fitting functions from key abundance matching models

Includes semi-empirical gas fraction conversions

Abstract

This note documents the methods used by the smartphone application, "GalMass," which has been released on the Android Market. GalMass estimates the halo virial mass (Mvir), stellar mass (Mstar), gas mass (Mgas), and galaxy gas fraction of a central galaxy as a function of redshift (z<2), with any one of the above masses as an input parameter. In order to convert between Mvir and Mstar (in either direction), GalMass uses fitting functions that approximate the abundance matching models of either Conroy & Wechsler (2009), Moster et al. (2010), or Behroozi et al. (2010). GalMass uses a a semi-empirical fit to observed galaxy gas fractions to convert between Mstar and Mgas, as outlined in Stewart et al. (2009).