Related papers: Star clusters as simple stellar populations
The fundamental properties of stellar clusters, such as the age or the total initial mass in stars, are often inferred from population synthesis models. The predicted properties are then used to constrain the physical mechanisms involved in…
Over the last decades, evolutionary population synthesis models have powered an unmatched leap forward in our understanding of galaxies. From dating the age of the first galaxies in the Universe to detailed measurements of the chemical…
This is the third paper of a series reporting the results from the POPSTAR evolutionary synthesis models. The main goal of this work is to present and discuss the synthetic photometric properties of Single Stellar Populations (SSPs)…
Observations show that nearly all star clusters and stellar populations contain blue straggler stars (BSs). BSs in a cluster can significantly enhance the integrated spectrum of the host population, preferentially at short wavelengths, and…
Stellar populations contain the most important information about star clus- ter formation and evolution. Until several decades ago, star clusters were believed to be ideal laboratories for studies of simple stellar populations (SSPs).…
Integrated spectrophotometric properties of stellar systems are intrinsically dispersed due to the stochastic nature of the small numbers of bright stars they contain. Among clusters, only the most massive ones can be used individually for…
Determining the properties of old stellar populations (those with age >1 Gyr) has long involved the comparison of their integrated light, either in the form of photometry or spectroscopic indexes, with empirical or synthetic templates. Here…
Accurate stellar population synthesis models are vital in understanding the properties and formation histories of galaxies. In order to calibrate and test the reliability of these models, they are often compared with observations of star…
High resolution spectral models for simple stellar populations (SSP) developed in the past few years have become a standard ingredient in studies of stellar population of galaxies. As more such models become available, it becomes…
The integrated spectro-photometric properties of star clusters are subject to large cluster-to-cluster variations. They are distributed in non trivial ways around the average properties predicted by standard population synthesis models.…
The existence of star-to-star light-element abundance variations in massive Galactic and extragalactic star clusters has fairly recently superseded the traditional paradigm of individual clusters hosting stars with the same age, and uniform…
Since the early 1970s, stellar population modelling has been one of the basic tools for understanding the physics of unresolved systems from observation of their integrated light. Models allow us to relate the integrated spectra (or…
This review deals with stellar population models computed by means of the evolutionary synthesis technique that was pioneered by Beatrice Tinsley roughly three decades ago. The focus is on the simplest models, the so called Simple Stellar…
Stellar clusters are thought to be the simplest stellar systems and the closest observational counterparts to theoretical models for single stellar populations. Progress in our understanding of the atmospheres and evolution of massive stars…
Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution due to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work…
The evolution of AGB stars is notoriously complex. The confrontation of AGB population models with observed stellar populations is a useful alternative to the detailed study of individual stars in efforts to converge towards a reliable…
Combining population synthesis models with simple Montecarlo simulations of stochastic effects in the number of stars occupying sparsely populated stellar evolutionary phases in the HRD, I show that the scatter observed in the photometric…
Simple stellar population (SSP) synthesis models are useful tools for studying the nature of unresolved star clusters in external galaxies. However, the plethora of currently available SSP models gives rise to significant and poorly…
Synthesis models predict the integrated properties of stellar populations. Several problems exist in this field, mostly related to the fact that integrated properties are distributed. To date, this aspect has been either ignored (as in…
Structural parameters of model star clusters are measured in radial profiles built from number-density, mass-density and surface-brightness distributions, assuming as well different photometric conditions. Star clusters of different ages,…