Should we believe the results of UV-mm galaxy SED modelling?

Understand

Galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling is a powerful tool, but constraining how well it is able to infer the true values for galaxy properties (e.g.

• the star formation rate, SFR) is difficult because independent determinations are often not available.
• However, galaxy simulations can provide a means of testing SED modelling techniques.
• Here, we present a numerical experiment in which we apply the SED modelling code MAGPHYS to ultraviolet (UV)--millimetre (mm) synthetic photometry generated from hydrodynamical simulations of an isolated disc galaxy and a major galaxy merger by performing three-dimensional dust radiative transfer.