Stellar Mass Calibrations for Local Low-Mass Galaxies

Abstract

The stellar masses of galaxies are measured using integrated light via several methods -- however, few of these methods were designed for low-mass ($M_{\star}\lesssim10^{8}\rm{M_{\odot}}$) "dwarf" galaxies, whose properties (e.g., stochastic star formation, low metallicity) pose unique challenges for estimating stellar masses. In this work, we quantify the precision and accuracy at which stellar masses of low-mass galaxies can be recovered using UV/optical/IR photometry. We use mock observations of 469 low-mass galaxies from a variety of models, including both semi-empirical models (GRUMPY and UniverseMachine-SAGA) and cosmological baryonic zoom-in simulations (MARVELous Dwarfs and FIRE-2), to test literature color-$M_\star/L$ relations and multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) mass estimators. We identify a list of "best practices" for measuring stellar masses of low-mass galaxies from integrated photometry. We find that literature color-$M_\star/L$ relations are often unable to capture the bursty star formation histories (SFHs) of low-mass galaxies, and we develop an updated prescription for stellar mass based on $g-r$ color that is better able to recover stellar masses for the bursty low-mass galaxies in our sample (with ~0.1 dex precision). SED fitting can also precisely recover stellar masses of low-mass galaxies, but this requires thoughtful choices about the form of the assumed SFH: parametric SFHs can underestimate stellar mass by as much as ~0.4 dex, while non-parametric SFHs recover true stellar masses with insignificant offset (-0.03$\pm$0.11 dex). Finally, we also caution that non-informative (wide) dust attenuation priors may introduce $M_\star$ uncertainties of up to ~0.6 dex.