A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
THE SPITZER SURVEY OF STELLAR STRUCTURE IN GALAXIES (S(4)G): MULTI-COMPONENT DECOMPOSITION STRATEGIES AND DATA RELEASE
Authors: Salo H, Laurikainen E, Laine J, Comeron S, Gadotti DA, Buta R, Sheth K, Zaritsky D, Ho L, Knapen J, Athanassoula E, Bosma A, Laine S, Cisternas M, Kim T, Munoz-Mateos JC, Regan M, Hinz JL, de Paz AG, Menendez-Delmestre K, Mizusawa T, Erroz-Ferrer S, Meidt SE, Querejeta M
Publisher: IOP PUBLISHING LTD
Publication year: 2015
Journal: Astrophysical Journal Supplement
Journal name in source: ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT SERIES
Journal acronym: ASTROPHYS J SUPPL S
Article number: ARTN 4
Volume: 219
Issue: 1
Number of pages: 45
ISSN: 0067-0049
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/219/1/4
The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S(4)G) is a deep 3.6 and 4.5 mu m imaging survey of 2352 nearby (<40 Mpc) galaxies. We describe the S(4)G data analysis pipeline 4, which is dedicated to two-dimensional structural surface brightness decompositions of 3.6 mu m images, using GALFIT3.0. Besides automatic 1-component Sersic fits, and 2-component Sersic bulge + exponential disk fits, we present human-supervised multi-component decompositions, which include, when judged appropriate, a central point source, bulge, disk, and bar components. Comparison of the fitted parameters indicates that multi-component models are needed to obtain reliable estimates for the bulge Sersic index and bulge-to-total light ratio (B/T), confirming earlier results. Here, we describe the preparations of input data done for decompositions, give examples of our decomposition strategy, and describe the data products released via IRSA and via our web page (www.oulu.fi/astronomy/S4G_PIPELINE4/MAIN). These products include all the input data and decomposition files in electronic form, making it easy to extend the decompositions to suit specific science purposes. We also provide our IDL-based visualization tools (GALFIDL) developed for displaying/running GALFIT-decompositions, as well as our mask editing procedure (MASK_EDIT) used in data preparation. A detailed analysis of the bulge, disk, and bar parameters derived from multi-component decompositions will be published separately.