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Submillimetre (submm) galaxies are among the most rapidly star-forming andmost massive high-redshift galaxies; thus, their properties provide importantconstraints on galaxy evolution models. However, there is still a debate abouttheir stellar masses and their nature in the context of the general galaxypopulation. To test the reliability of their stellar mass determinations, weused a sample of simulated submm galaxies for which we derived stellar massesvia spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling (with Grasil, Magphys, Hyperzand LePhare) adopting various star formation histories (SFHs). We found thatthe assumption of SFHs with two independent components leads to the mostaccurate stellar masses. Exponentially declining SFHs (tau) lead to lowermasses (albeit still consistent with the true values), while the assumption ofsingle-burst SFHs results in a significant mass underestimation. Thus, weconclude that studies based on the higher masses inferred from fitting the SEDsof real submm galaxies with double SFHs are most likely to be correct, implyingthat submm galaxies lie on the high-mass end of the main sequence ofstar-forming galaxies. This conclusion appears robust to assumptions of whetheror not submm galaxies are driven by major mergers, since the suite of simulatedgalaxies modelled here contains examples of both merging and isolated galaxies.We identified discrepancies between the true and inferred stellar ages (ratherthan the dust attenuation) as the primary determinant of the success/failure ofthe mass recovery. Regardless of the choice of SFH, the SED-derived stellarmasses exhibit a factor of ~2 scatter around the true value; this scatter is aninherent limitation of the SED modelling due to simplified assumptions.Finally, we found that the contribution of active galactic nuclei does not haveany significant impact on the derived stellar masses.

Determining the stellar masses of submillimetre galaxies: the critical importance of star formation histories