BayeSED-GALAXIES. I. Performance Test for Simultaneous Photometric Redshift and Stellar Population Parameter Estimation of Galaxies in the CSST Wide-field Multiband Imaging Survey

Abstract

The forthcoming Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) wide-field multiband imaging survey will produce seven-band photometric spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for billions of galaxies. The effective extraction of astronomical information from these massive data sets of SEDs relies on the techniques of SED synthesis (or modeling) and SED analysis (or fitting). We evaluate the performance of the latest version of the BayeSED code combined with SED models with increasing complexity for simultaneously determining the photometric redshifts and stellar population parameters of galaxies in this survey. By using an empirical statistics–based mock galaxy sample without SED modeling errors, we show that the random observational errors in photometries are more important sources of errors than the parameter degeneracies and Bayesian analysis method and tool. By using a Horizon-AGN hydrodynamical simulation–based mock galaxy sample with SED modeling errors about the star formation histories (SFHs) and dust attenuation laws (DALs), the simple typical assumptions lead to significantly worse parameter estimation with CSST photometries only. SED models with more flexible (or complicated) forms of SFH/DAL do not necessarily lead to better estimation of redshift and stellar population parameters. We discuss the selection of the best SED model by means of Bayesian model comparison in different surveys. Our results reveal that Bayesian model comparison with Bayesian evidence may favor SED models with different complexities when using photometries from different surveys. Meanwhile, the SED model with the largest Bayesian evidence tends to give the best performance of parameter estimation, which is clearer for photometries with higher discriminative power.

Keywords

• Spectral energy distribution
• Bayesian statistics
• Extragalactic astronomy
• Redshift surveys
• Stellar populations
• Galaxy stellar content