The physical properties of local (U)LIRGs: a comparison with nearby
  early- and late-type galaxies
  In order to pinpoint the place of the (U)LIRGs in the local Universe we
examine the properties of a sample of 67 such systems and compare them with
those of 268 ETGs and 542 LTGs from the DustPedia database. We make use of
multi-wavelength photometric data and the CIGALE SED fitting code to extract
their physical parameters. The median SEDs as well as the values of the derived
parameters were compared to those of the local ETGs and LTGs. In addition to
that, (U)LIRGs were divided into seven classes, according to the merging stage
of each system, and variations in the derived parameters were investigated.
(U)LIRGs occupy the `high-end' on the dust and stellar mass, and SFR in the
local Universe with median values of 5.2$\times10^7~M_{\odot}$,
6.3$\times10^{10}~M_{\odot}$ and 52$~M_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$, respectively. The
PDR-dust emission in (U)LIRGs is 11.7% of the total dust luminosity,
significantly higher than ETGs (1.6%) and the LTGs (5.2%). The median value of
the dust temperature in (U)LIRGs is 32 K, which is higher compared to both the
ETGs (28 K) and the LTGs (22 K). Small differences, in the derived parameters,
are seen for the seven merging classes of our sample of (U)LIRGs with the most
evident one being on the star-formation rate, where in systems in late merging
stages the median SFR reaches up to 99 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ compared to 26
M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ for the isolated ones. In contrast to the local normal
galaxies where old stars dominate the stellar emission, the young stars in
(U)LIRGs contribute with 64% of their luminosity to the total stellar
luminosity. The fraction of the dust-absorbed stellar luminosity is extremely
high in (U)LIRGs (78%) compared to 7% and 25% in ETGs and ETGs, respectively.
The fraction of the stellar luminosity used to heat up the dust grains is very
high in (U)LIRGs, while 74% of the dust emission comes from the young stars.
