Stellar masses and star formation histories for 10 5 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We develop a new method to constrain the star formation histories, dust attenuation and stellar masses of galaxies. It is based on two stellar absorption line indices, the 4000 break strength and the Balmer absorption line index H A . Together, these indices allow us to constrain the mean stellar ages of galaxies and the fractional stellar mass formed in bursts over the past few Gyr. A comparison with broad band photometry then yields estimates of dust attenuation and of stellar mass. We generate a large library of Monte Carlo realizations of different star formation histories, including starbursts of varying strength and a range of metallicities. We use this library to generate median likelihood estimates of…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• AP
  Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• AV
  Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
• PU
  Princeton University
• UO
  University of Washington
• JH
  Johns Hopkins University
• NM
  New Mexico State University
• BF
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
• M
  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
• MF
  Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
• UN
  U.S. Naval Observatory
• F
  Fermilab
• LA
  Los Alamos National Laboratory