On the Impact of Inclination-Dependent Attenuation on Derived Star
  Formation Histories: Results from Disk Galaxies in the Great Observatories
  Origins Deep Survey Fields
  We develop and implement an inclination-dependent attenuation prescription
for spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting and study its impact on derived
star-formation histories. We apply our prescription within the SED fitting code
Lightning to a clean sample of 82, z=0.21-1.35 disk-dominated galaxies in the
Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North and South fields. To compare our
inclination-dependent attenuation prescription with more traditional fitting
prescriptions, we also fit the SEDs with the inclination-independent Calzetti
et al. (2000) attenuation curve. From this comparison, we find that fits to a
subset of 58, z < 0.7 galaxies in our sample, utilizing the Calzetti et al.
(2000) prescription, recover similar trends with inclination as the
inclination-dependent fits for the far-UV-band attenuation and recent
star-formation rates. However, we find a difference between prescriptions in
the optical attenuation (AV) that is strongly correlated with inclination
(p-value < 10^-11). For more face-on galaxies, with i < 50 deg, (edge-on, i =
90 deg), the average derived AV is 0.31 +\- 0.11 magnitudes lower (0.56 +\-
0.16 magnitudes higher) for the inclination-dependent model compared to
traditional methods. Further, the ratio of stellar masses between prescriptions
also has a significant (p-value < 10^-2) trend with inclination. For i = 0-65
deg, stellar masses are systematically consistent between fits, with
log(Mstar_inc/Mstar_Calzetti) = -0.05 +/- 0.03 dex and scatter of 0.11 dex.
However, for i = 80-90 deg, derived stellar masses are lower for the Calzetti
et al. (2000) fits by an average factor of 0.17 +\- 0.03 dex and scatter of
0.13 dex. Therefore, these results suggest that SED fitting assuming the
Calzetti et al. (2000) attenuation law potentially underestimates stellar
masses in highly inclined disk-dominated galaxies.
