Star Formation Histories from SEDs and CMDs Agree: Evidence for
  Synchronized Star Formation in Local Volume Dwarf Galaxies over the Past 3
  Gyr
  Star Formation Histories (SFHs) reveal physical processes that influence how
galaxies form their stellar mass. We compare the SFHs of a sample of 36 nearby
(D $\leq$ 4 Mpc) dwarf galaxies from the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury
(ANGST), inferred from the Color Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs) of individually
resolved stars in these galaxies, with those reconstructed by broad-band
Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting using the Dense Basis SED fitting
code. When comparing individual SFHs, we introduce metrics for evaluating SFH
reconstruction techniques. For both the SED and CMD methods, the median
normalized SFH of galaxies in the sample shows a period of quiescence at
lookback times of 3-6 Gyr followed by rejuvenated star formation over the past
3 Gyr that remains active until the present day. To determine if these
represent special epochs of star formation in the D $\leq$ 4 Mpc portion of the
Local Volume, we break this ANGST dwarf galaxy sample into subsets based on
specific star formation rate and spatial location. Modulo offsets between the
methods of about 1 Gyr, all subsets show significant decreases and increases in
their median normalized SFHs at the same epochs, and the majority of the
individual galaxy SFHs are consistent with these trends. These results motivate
further study of potential synchronized star formation quiescence and
rejuvenation in the Local Volume as well as development of a hybrid method of
SFH reconstruction that combines CMDs and SEDs, which have complementary
systematics.
