MegaMorph - multi-wavelength measurement of galaxy structure: complete S\'ersic profile information from modern surveys

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-wavelength galaxy profile fitting method using GALFIT and GALAPAGOS, improving parameter stability and accuracy across large surveys by leveraging full spectral data.

Contribution

It presents a new multi-wavelength fitting technique that enhances galaxy parameter measurements, especially in low S/N bands, and provides more physically meaningful spectral transitions.

Findings

Improved stability and accuracy of galaxy parameters with multi-wavelength data.

Enhanced measurement of faint galaxy magnitudes and structural parameters.

More reliable interpolation of galaxy properties across different wavelengths.

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate a new method for fitting galaxy profiles which makes use of the full multi-wavelength data provided by modern large optical-near-infrared imaging surveys. We present a new version of GALAPAGOS, which utilises a recently-developed multi-wavelength version of GALFIT, and enables the automated measurement of wavelength dependent S\'ersic profile parameters for very large samples of galaxies. Our new technique is extensively tested to assess the reliability of both pieces of software, GALFIT and GALAPAGOS on both real ugrizY JHK imaging data from the GAMA survey and simulated data made to the same specifications. We find that fitting galaxy light profiles with multi-wavelength data increases the stability and accuracy of the measured parameters, and hence produces more complete and meaningful multi-wavelength photometry than has been available previously. The improvement is particularly significant for magnitudes in low S/N bands and for structural parameters like half-light radius re and S\'ersic index n for which a prior is used by constraining these parameters to a polynomial as a function of wavelength. This allows the fitting routines to push the magnitude of galaxies for which sensible values can be derived to fainter limits. The technique utilises a smooth transition of galaxy parameters with wavelength, creating more physically meaningful transitions than single-band fitting and allows accurate interpolation between passbands, perfect for derivation of rest-frame values.