Determine whether dust attenuation models produce different merger dust-mass estimates

Determine whether the dustatt_modified_starburst attenuation model produces systematically lower dust masses in merging galaxies than the dustatt_modified_CF00 attenuation model when comparing galaxies at matched star-formation rates.

Background

The paper compares four CIGALE configurations combining two dust-attenuation models—dustatt_modified_CF00 and dustatt_modified_starburst—with two dust-emission models. When the control galaxies are matched to mergers in star-formation rate, the dustatt_modified_starburst runs show a weak indication of lower merger dust masses than the dustatt_modified_CF00 runs.

Because the differences are within the uncertainties, the authors do not regard the result as established. A larger sample of merging galaxies is needed to determine whether the apparent dependence on the attenuation model is real rather than statistical fluctuation.

References

There is a weak indication that the dustatt_modified_starburst attenuation model produces slightly lower M$_{Dust}$ in merging galaxies than dustatt_modified_CF00. As this difference is within error, we would require more data to better constrain the uncertainty and to make this assertion more than conjecture.

— Effect of galaxy mergers on dust masses  (2610.26166 - Pearson et al., 19 Oct 2026) in Section 5.2, CIGALE dust models