The impact of Spitzer infrared data on stellar mass estimates - and a revised galaxy stellar mass function at 0 < z < 5

Understand

Aims: We estimate stellar masses of galaxies in the high redshift universe with the intention of determining the influence of newly available Spitzer/IRAC infrared data on the analysis.

• Based on the results, we probe the mass assembly history of the universe.
• Methods: We use the GOODS-MUSIC catalog, which provides multiband photometry from the U--filter to the 8 mum Spitzer band for almost 15,000 galaxies with either spectroscopic (for ~7 % of the sample) or photometric redshifts, and apply a standard model fitting technique to estimate stellar masses.
• We then repeat our calculations with fixed photometric redshifts excluding Spitzer photometry and directly compare the outcomes to look for systematic deviations.