Related papers: walter: A Tool for Predicting Resolved Stellar Pop…
The dark matter subhalo mass function is a promising way of distinguishing between dark matter models. While cold dark matter predicts halos down to Earth-sized masses, other dark matter models typically predict a cut-off in the subhalo…
The expected imaging capabilities of future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will offer the unique possibility to investigate the stellar population of distant galaxies from the photometry of the stars in very crowded fields. Using…
An 8 m successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) would make incredible gains in the study of stellar populations, especially in the Local Group. If diffraction-limited at 0.5 microns, the "Next HST" could produce high-resolution imaging…
We present a compelling case for a systematic and comprehensive study of the resolved and unresolved stellar populations, ISM, and immediate environments of galaxies throughout the local volume, defined here as D < 20 Mpc. This volume is…
The resolved stellar populations of local galaxies, from which it is possible to derive complete star formation and chemical enrichment histories, provide an important way to study galaxy formation and evolution that is complementary to…
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…
We present a Bayesian method to determine simultaneously the age, metallicity, distance modulus, and interstellar reddening by dust of any resolved stellar population, by comparing the observed and synthetic color magnitude diagrams on a…
The details of bulge formation via collapse, mergers, secular processes or their interplay remain unresolved. To start answering this question and quantify the importance of distinct mechanisms, we mapped a sample of three galactic bulges…
We present a novel statistical algorithm, Stellar Ages, which currently infers the age, metallicity, and extinction posterior distributions of stellar populations from their magnitudes. While this paper focuses on these parameters, the…
The paucity of observed dwarf galaxies in the Local Group relative to the abundance of predicted dark matter halos remains one of the greatest puzzles of the LCDM paradigm. Solving this puzzle now requires not only matching the numbers of…
We present a new set of stellar interior and synthesis models for predicting the integrated emission from stellar populations in star clusters and galaxies of arbitrary age and metallicity. This work differs from existing spectral synthesis…
Our understanding of the neutron star population is informed to a great degree by large-scale surveys that have been carried out by radio facilities during the past fifty years. We summarize some of the recent breakthroughs in our…
Inference of the physical properties of stellar populations from observed photometry and spectroscopy is a key goal in the study of galaxy evolution. In recent years the quality and quantity of the available data has increased, and there…
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and may be launched as early as mid-2011. The key scientific goals for JWST are discovering and understanding the formation of the first…
We discuss the first results from ongoing studies of the resolved stellar populations in the outskirts of our nearest large neighbour, M31. Deep HST/WFPC2 archival observations are used to construct colour-magnitude-diagrams which reach…
Within the Local Universe galaxies can be studied in great detail star by star, and here we review the results of quantitative studies in nearby dwarf galaxies. The Color-Magnitude Diagram synthesis method is well established as the most…
The star formation, mass assembly and chemical enrichment histories of galaxies, and their present distributions of dark matter, remain encoded in their stellar populations. Distinguishing the actual distribution functions of stellar age,…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to revolutionize our understanding of the high-redshift Universe, and may be able to test the prediction that the first, chemically pristine (population III) stars formed with very high…
We summarize past and current surveys for Wolf-Rayet stars among the Local Group galaxies, emphasizing both the how and the why. Such studies are invaluable for helping us learn about massive star evolution, and for providing sensitive…
Populations of massive stars are directly reflective of the physics of stellar evolution. Counting subtypes of massive stars and ratios of massive stars in different evolutionary states have been used ubiquitously as diagnostics of age and…