2012MNRAS.425.3094C

Spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting in the far-infrared (FIR) is greatly limited by a dearth of data and an excess of free parameters - from galaxies' dust composition, temperature, mass, orientation, opacity, to heating from active galactic nuclei (AGN). This paper presents a simple FIR SED fitting technique joining a modified, single dust temperature greybody, representing the reprocessed starburst emission in the whole galaxy, to a mid-infrared (MIR) power law, which approximates hot-dust emission from AGN heating or clumpy, hot starbursting regions. This FIR SED can be used to measure IR luminosities, dust temperatures and dust masses for both local and high-z galaxies with three to 10+ FIR photometric measurements. While the fitting technique does not model emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the MIR, the impact of PAH features on integrated FIR properties is negligible when compared to the bulk emission at longer wavelengths.