Related papers: Towards a photometric metallicity scale for open c…
We have assembled a catalogue of relative ages, metallicities and abundance ratios for about 150 local galaxies in field, group and cluster environments. The galaxies span morphological types from cD and ellipticals, to late type spirals.…
In order to understand the Galactic structure, we perform a statistical analysis of the distribution of various cluster parameters based on an almost complete sample of Galactic open clusters yet available. The geometrical and physical…
To obtain the accuracy now sought in the extragalactic distance scale through standard candles and rulers, calibration of stellar photometry must be improved. The sensitivity of the V-K color surface brightness relation is examined here by…
We derive stellar ages, from evolutionary tracks, and metallicities, from Stromgren photometry, for a sample of 5828 dwarf and sub-dwarf stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue. This stellar disk sample is used to investigate the age-metallicity…
We present wide field JHKs photometry of 16 Galactic globular clusters located towards the Galactic bulge, calibrated on the 2MASS photometric system. Differential reddening corrections and statistical field star decontamination are…
The young $\sigma$-Orionis cluster is an important location for understanding the formation and evolution of stars, brown dwarfs, and planetary-mass objects. Its metallicity, although being a fundamental parameter, has not been well…
Globular cluster ages provide both an important test of models of globular cluster formation and a powerful method to constrain the assembly history of galaxies. Unfortunately, measuring the ages of unresolved old stellar populations has…
We present updated stellar population models appropriate for old ages (>1 Gyr) and covering a wide range in metallicities (-1.5<[Fe/H]<0.3). These models predict the full spectral variation associated with individual element abundance…
Evolutionary models taking into account radiative accelerations, thermal diffusion, and gravitational settling for 28 elements, including all those contributing to OPAL stellar opacities, have been calculated for solar metallicity stars of…
From an initial sample of a few hundred stars selected for an Hipparcos program, a subsample of 33 objects with direct determination of their effective temperature, bolometric magnitude and [Fe/H] has been derived. An accurate observational…
Knowledge of stellar atmospheric parameters ($T_{\rm eff}$, $\log{g}$, [Fe/H]) of M dwarfs can be used to constrain both theoretical stellar models and Galactic chemical evolutionary models, and guide exoplanet searches, but their…
Stellar metallicity gradients in the outer regions of galaxies are a critical tool for disentangling the contributions of in-situ and ex-situ formed stars. In the two-phase galaxy formation scenario, the initial gas collapse creates steep…
The determination of stellar metallicity and its gradient in external galaxies is a difficult task, but crucial for the understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. The color of the Red Giant Branch (RGB) can be used to determine…
In several instances chemical abundances of dwarf and giant stars are used simultaneously under the assumption that they share the same abundance scale. This assumption might have implications in different astrophysical contexts. We aim to…
The Galactic globular cluster system is incomplete, especially in the low latitude regions of the Galactic bulge and disk. We report the physical characterization of twelve star clusters in the Milky Way, most of which are explored here for…
An earlier analysis of the Milky Way Star Cluster (MWSC) catalogue revealed an apparent lack of old (> 1 Gyr) open clusters in the solar neighbourhood (< 1 kpc). To fill this gap we undertook a search for hitherto unknown star clusters,…
The outer halo regions of early-type galaxies carry key information about their past accretion history. However, spectroscopically probing the stellar component at such galactocentric radii is still challenging. Using Keck/DEIMOS, we have…
Recently, it has been noticed that the discrepancies in the integrated colour indices (CIs) between star clusters and models are mostly due to the projection of bright stars in the apertures. In order to reduce this problem, the method of…
A new photometric system suitable for deep, precise and quick metallicity mapping in galaxies is proposed. We find a linear correlation between our metallicity index and the Mg2 index for stellar, globular cluster, and early-type galaxy…
Various effective temperature scales have been proposed over the years. Despite much work and the high internal precision usually achieved, systematic differences of order 100 K (or more) among various scales are still present. We present…