Related papers: Quantifying Systematic Age Discrepancies in Very Y…
We investigate the stellar populations in the star forming ring of the luminous infrared galaxy NGC 7469. We use Hubble Space Telescope multi-wavelength (UV through NIR) imaging complemented with new K-band ground-based long-slit…
We present a new method to estimate the absolute ages of stellar systems. This method is based on the difference in magnitude between the main sequence turn-off (MSTO) and a well defined knee located along the lower main sequence (MSK).…
The mass of unresolved young star clusters derived from spectro-photometric data may well be off by a factor of 2 or more once the migration of massive stars driven by mass segregation is accounted for. We quantify this effect for a large…
We show the results of deep V and I HST photometry of 6 rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud with different ages and metallicities. The number of stars with measured magnitudes in each cluster varies from about 3000 to 10000. We…
We have derived ages for 13 young (<30 Myr) star-forming regions and find they are up to a factor two older than the ages typically adopted in the literature. This result has wide-ranging implications, including that circumstellar discs…
Context:Ages derived from the low mass stars still contracting onto the main sequence often differ from ages derived from the high mass ones that have already evolved away from it. Aims:We investigate the general claim of disagreement…
(Abridged) Age derivation techniques for unresolved stellar populations at high redshifts are explored using the NUV spectrum of LBDS~53W091 and LBDS~53W069. The photometry and morphology of these galaxies suggest they are early-type…
Mechanisms involved in the star formation process and in particular the duration of the different phases of the cloud contraction are not yet fully understood. Photometric data alone suggest that objects coexist in the young cluster NGC6530…
Spectra of galaxies contain an enormous amount of information about the relative mixture of ages and metallicities of constituent stars. We present a comprehensive study designed to extract the maximum information from spectra of data…
We use new WFC3 observations of the nearby grand design spiral galaxy M83 to develop two independent methods for estimating the ages of young star clusters. The first method uses the physical extent and morphology of Halpha emission to…
We present deep, photometrically calibrated BVRJHK images of the nearby interacting galaxy pair NGC 4038/39 (``The Antennae''). Color maps of the images are derived, and those using the B, V, and K-bands are analyzed with techniques…
The (rest-frame) near-IR domain contains important stellar population diagnostics and is often used to estimate masses of galaxies at low as well as high redshifts. However, many stellar population models are still relatively poorly…
I will show that photometry -- if extending over a reasonable choice of passbands -- can give fairly precise information about young star clusters and their evolutionary state. Optical colors alone are known to leave severe ambiguities due…
We investigate the performance of grid-based techniques in estimating the age of stars in detached eclipsing binary systems. We evaluate the precision of the estimates due to the uncertainty in the observational constraints, and the…
To understand the formation and evolution of the Milky Way disk, we must connect its current properties to its past. We explore hydrodynamical cosmological simulations to investigate how the chemical abundances of stars might be linked to…
The orbit distribution of young stars in the Galactic disk is highly structured, from well-defined clusters to streams of stars that may be widely dispersed across the sky, but are compact in orbital action-angle space. The age distribution…
[ABRIDGED] The LMC star cluster system offers the unique opportunity to independently check the accuracy of age and mass determinations based on a number of complementary techniques, including isochrone analysis. Using our sophisticated…
We have recently shown that the $\sim2$ Gyr old Large Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC 1978 hosts multiple populations in terms of star-to-star abundance variations in [N/Fe]. These can be seen as a splitting or spread in the sub-giant and…
This review covers age-dating methods applied to young stellar populations in starburst galaxies with ages of 10^8 yr and less. First, recent advances in stellar modeling, both for the interior and the atmospheres, are discussed and…
Pre-main sequence evolutionary theory is not well-calibrated to observations. With care, the observed quantities can be converted into effective temperature and luminosity (i.e. the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram) which the theoretical…