Related papers: Stellar populations -- the next ten years
The stellar populations of galaxies contain a wealth of detailed information. From the youngest, most massive stars, to almost invisible remnants, the history of star formation is encoded in the stars that make up a galaxy. Extracting some,…
Derived from first physical principles, a few simple rules are presented that can help in both the planning and interpretation of CCD and IR-array camera observations of resolvable stellar populations. These rules concern the overall size…
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…
Stellar population studies provide unique clues to constrain galaxy formation models. So far, detailed studies based on absorption line strengths have mainly focused on the optical spectral range although many diagnostic features are…
It is currently impossible to determine the abundances and ages of the stellar populations of distant, dense stellar systems star by star. Therefore, methods to analyze the composite light of stellar systems are required. I review the…
We discuss, from a statistical point of view, some leading issues that deal with the study of stellar populations in fully or partially unresolved aggregates, like globular clusters and distant galaxies. A confident assessment of the…
The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart…
We discuss the impact that the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes will have on the open astrophysical problems of resolved stellar populations. In particular, we address the interplay between multiband photometry and…
Narrowband galaxy surveys have recently gained interest as a promising method to achieve the necessary accuracy on the photometric redshift estimate of individual galaxies for stage-IV cosmological surveys. One key advantage is the ability…
The determination of photospheric abundances in late-type stars from spectroscopic observations is a well-established field, built on solid theoretical foundations. Improving those foundations to refine the accuracy of the inferred…
High-performance instruments at large ground-based telescopes have made integral field spectroscopy (IFS) a powerful tool for the study of extended objects such as galaxies, nebulae, or even larger survey fields on the sky. Here we discuss…
Space-based photometry has substantially increased the number of pulsating stars found in binary systems by more than four orders of magnitude. Combined with high-resolution spectroscopy, high-precision photometry offers model-independent…
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…
We have developed an analytical method to investigate the stellar populations in a galaxy using the broad-band colours. The method enables us to determine the relative contribution, spatial distribution and age for different stellar…
The efficient use of near-IR data in studies of external stellar populations depends on our ability to recognize the nature of the predominant sources of light, and to interprete these findings in terms of age and metallicity. Here we focus…
We investigate the ability of spectroscopic techniques to yield realistic star formation histories (SFHs) for the bulges of spiral galaxies based on a comparison with their observed broadband colors. Full spectrum fitting to optical spectra…
We review the main stellar features observed in starburst spectra from the UV to the near-IR and their use as fundamental tools to determine the properties of stellar populations from integrated spectra. The origin and dependence of the…
This is a summary of my lectures during the 2011 IAC Winter School in Puerto de la Cruz. I give an introduction to the field of stellar populations in galaxies, and highlight some new results. Since the title of the Winter School was {\it…
The determination of chemical composition is crucial for investigating the formation and evolution of star forming galaxies and provides a powerful tool to constrain the effects of galactic winds and accretion from the cosmic web. In this…
The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will gather unprecedented spectro-photometric data on galaxies out to the highest redshifts. It is therefore crucial to identify the spectro-photometric diagnostics within reach of NGST, which will…