Bayesian discrimination of the panchromatic spectral energy distribution modelings of galaxies

Abstract

AbstractFitting the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is a widely used technique to extract information about the physical properties of galaxies. However, a major difficulty lies in the numerous uncertainties regarding almost all ingredients of the SED modeling of galaxies. The Bayesian methods provide a consistent conceptual basis for dealing with the problem of inference with many uncertainties. While the Bayesian parameter estimation method have become quite popular in the field of SED fitting of galaxies, the Bayesian model comparison method, which is based on the same Bayes’ rule, is still not widely used in this field. With the application of Bayesian model comparison method in a series of papers, we show that the results obtained with Bayesian model comparison are understandable in the context of stellar/galaxy physics. These results indicate that Bayesian model comparison is a reliable and very powerful method for the SED fitting of galaxies.