The MAGPI Survey: Emission Line Products Data Release and the Role of Spectroscopic Aperture Covering Fraction on the Balmer Decrement-Stellar Mass Relation

Abstract The Middle Ages Galaxy Properties with Integral field spectroscopy (MAGPI) survey is a Large Program on the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope using the MUSE instrument. This paper presents the data release for the MAGPI emission line products and includes emission line maps for 836 galaxies at 0.05 ≤ zspec ≤ 0.424 (Hα-window) and aperture-based emission line measurements for 2,607 galaxies at 0.05 ≤ zspec ≤ 1.50 (upper bound is [OII] cut-off), both based on the GIST software, for all 56 MAGPI fields. We use these data to examine dust attenuation, which represents a major source of uncertainty in the derived properties of galaxies that are critical to constrain models of galaxy evolution. We examine the role that the spectroscopic aperture covering fraction (fc) has on the relationship between the Balmer decrement (BD = F(Hα)/F(Hβ); a common proxy for dust attenuation) and the total stellar mass (M⋆). Several studies have suggested that the BD-M⋆ relation may be redshift invariant; however, the compared surveys often have different fc due to their differing fibre or slit sizes that can cause systematic offsets. Our results indicate that fc has a significant impact on this relationship, due to galaxies having negative BD radial gradients, which are more negative for more massive galaxies at z ≲ 0.4. Comparing spectroscopic surveys with ≳0.5, we find that the BD-M⋆ relation shows a preference for redshift evolution and is roughly consistent with the behaviour of UV stellar continuum attenuation redshift evolution (AFUV-z), with the average dust attenuation in galaxies peaking at z ~ 1.2 and decreasing at lower and higher redshifts.

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Journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published
2026-08-20
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1585
Primary Topic
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
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article
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article

The MAGPI Survey: Emission Line Products Data Release and the Role of Spectroscopic Aperture Covering Fraction on the Balmer Decrement-Stellar Mass Relation

E. Müller, Gauri Sharma, Caroline Foster, Lucas M. Valenzuela et al.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
article

The MAGPI Survey: Emission Line Products Data Release and the Role of Spectroscopic Aperture Covering Fraction on the Balmer Decrement-Stellar Mass Relation

E. Müller, Gauri Sharma, Caroline Foster, Lucas M. Valenzuela, Tayyaba Zafar, Marcie Mun, Kathryn Grasha, K. E. Harborne, Tianmu Gao, Iris Breda, S. M. Croom, Sarah M. Sweet, Eda Gjergo, Stefania Barsanti, Andrew Battisti, Emily Wisnioski, P. K. Das, J van de Sande, D Calzetti, I U Aalia, Y Mai, J T Mendel, S Thater, T Mukherjee, C D P Lagos, B Ziegler, G van de Ven, A Mailvaganam, A Ferré-Mateu, R-S Remus
article en

Abstract

Abstract The Middle Ages Galaxy Properties with Integral field spectroscopy (MAGPI) survey is a Large Program on the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope using the MUSE instrument. This paper presents the data release for the MAGPI emission line products and includes emission line maps for 836 galaxies at 0.05 ≤ zspec ≤ 0.424 (Hα-window) and aperture-based emission line measurements for 2,607 galaxies at 0.05 ≤ zspec ≤ 1.50 (upper bound is [OII] cut-off), both based on the GIST software, for all 56 MAGPI fields. We use these data to examine dust attenuation, which represents a major source of uncertainty in the derived properties of galaxies that are critical to constrain models of galaxy evolution. We examine the role that the spectroscopic aperture covering fraction (fc) has on the relationship between the Balmer decrement (BD = F(Hα)/F(Hβ); a common proxy for dust attenuation) and the total stellar mass (M⋆). Several studies have suggested that the BD-M⋆ relation may be redshift invariant; however, the compared surveys often have different fc due to their differing fibre or slit sizes that can cause systematic offsets. Our results indicate that fc has a significant impact on this relationship, due to galaxies having negative BD radial gradients, which are more negative for more massive galaxies at z ≲ 0.4. Comparing spectroscopic surveys with ≳0.5, we find that the BD-M⋆ relation shows a preference for redshift evolution and is roughly consistent with the behaviour of UV stellar continuum attenuation redshift evolution (AFUV-z), with the average dust attenuation in galaxies peaking at z ~ 1.2 and decreasing at lower and higher redshifts.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Australian National University (AU), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), The University of Sydney (AU), University of Vienna (AT), Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (IT), Universidad de La Laguna (ES), The University of Queensland (AU), Amherst College (US), Durham University (GB), University of Massachusetts Amherst (US), Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (FR), Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg (FR), Australian Astronomical Observatory (AU), UNSW Sydney (AU), Sorbonne Université (FR), Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (PT), Australian Hearing (AU), Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (PT), Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (ES), Astronomy and Space (AU), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste (IT), Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe (IT), ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (AU), International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (AU), Australian Astronomical Optics (AU), Swinburne University of Technology (AU), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE), University of the Western Cape (ZA), Nanjing University (CN), Macquarie University (AU)
Openalex Percentile: Top 10%
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
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