Utilizing stellar mass estimates to identify gravitational wave host galaxies

ABSTRACT Stellar mass can enhance the ranking of potential hosts for compact binary coalescences identified by ground-based gravitational-wave detectors within large localization areas containing even thousands of galaxies. Despite its benefits, accurate stellar mass estimation is often time-consuming and computationally intensive. In this study, we implement four stellar mass estimation methods based on infrared magnitudes and compare them with values estimated with spectral energy distribution fitting from GAMA DR3, revealing strong correlations. We also introduce a method to calibrate the results from these estimation methods to match the reference values. Our analysis of simulated binary black hole events demonstrates that incorporating stellar mass improves the rank of actual hosts $\sim$80 per cent of cases. Furthermore, the improvement is comparable when stellar masses are derived from the tested estimation methods to when they are obtained directly from the simulated galaxy catalogue, demonstrating that simple stellar mass estimates can provide a computationally efficient alternative.