The Resolved Stellar Populations in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies

The Resolved Stellar Populations in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies
Author: Hwihyun Kim
Publisher:
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2012
Genre: Galaxies
ISBN:

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Understanding the properties and formation histories of individual stars in galaxies remains one of the most important areas in astrophysics. The impact of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been revolutionary, providing deep observations of nearby galaxies at high resolution and unprecedented sensitivity over a wavelength range from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared. In this study, I use deep HST imaging observations of three nearby star-forming galaxies (M83, NGC 4214, and CGCG 269-049) based on the HST observations, in order to provide to construct color-magnitude and color-color diagrams of their resolved stellar populations. First, I select 50 regions in the spiral arm and inter-arm areas of M83, and determine the age distribution of the luminous stellar populations in each region. I developed an innovative method of star-by-star correction for internal extinction to improve stellar age and mass estimates. I compare the extinction-corrected ages of the 50 regions with those determined from several independent methods. The young stars are much more likely to be found in concentrated aggregates along spiral arms, while older stars are more dispersed. These results are consistent with a scenario where star formation is associated with the spiral arms, and stars form primarily in star clusters before dispersing on short timescales to form the field population. I address the effects of spatial resolution on the measured colors, magnitudes, and age estimates. While individual stars can occasionally show measurable differences in the colors and magnitudes, the age estimates for entire regions are only slightly affected. The same procedure is applied to nearby starbursting dwarf NGC 4214 to study the distributions of young and old stellar populations. Lastly, I describe the analysis of the HST and Spitzer Space Telescope observations of the extremely metal-poor dwarf galaxy (XMPG) CGCG 269-049 at a distance of 4.96 Mpc. This galaxy is one of the most metal-poor known with 12+log(O/H)=7.43. I find clear evidence for the presence of an old stellar population in CGCG 269-049, ruling out the possibility that this galaxy is forming its first generation of stars, as originally proposed for XMPGs. This comprehensive study of resolved stellar populations in three nearby galaxies provides detailed view of the current state of star formation and evolution of galaxies.

Stellar Populations

Stellar Populations
Author: International Astronomical Union. Symposium
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2010
Genre: Galaxies
ISBN: 9780521764841

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IAU Symposium 262 presents reviews on the current understanding of the theories of stellar evolution, galaxy formation and galaxy evolution. It emphasises what we have learned in the past few years from massive surveys covering large portions of the sky (e.g. SDSS, HDF, UDF, GOODS, COSMOS). Several critical aspects of research on stellar populations deserve further effort in order to be brought in tune with other areas of astrophysical research. The next ten years will see the opening of major observatories that will increase the quality and quantity of astronomical data by orders of magnitude. The expected benefits from these instruments for the study of stellar populations are explored. This critical review of state of the art observational and theoretical work will appeal to all those working on stellar populations, from distant galaxies to local resolved galaxies and galactic star clusters.

Star-Formation Rates of Galaxies

Star-Formation Rates of Galaxies
Author: Andreas Zezas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2021-04-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1316877523

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Star-formation is one of the key processes that shape the current state and evolution of galaxies. This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of the different methods used to measure the intensity of recent or on-going star-forming activity in galaxies, discussing their advantages and complications in detail. It includes a thorough overview of the theoretical underpinnings of star-formation rate indicators, including topics such as stellar evolution and stellar spectra, the stellar initial mass function, and the physical conditions in the interstellar medium. The authors bring together in one place detailed and comparative discussions of traditional and new star-formation rate indicators, star-formation rate measurements in different spatial scales, and comparisons of star-formation rate indicators probing different stellar populations, along with the corresponding theoretical background. This is a useful reference for students and researchers working in the field of extragalactic astrophysics and studying star-formation in local and higher-redshift galaxies.

The Stellar Populations of Galaxies

The Stellar Populations of Galaxies
Author: B. Barbuy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401124345

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One approach to learning about stellar populations is to study them at three different levels of resolution. First in our own Galaxy; secondly from nearby galaxies where stars can still be resolved; and thirdly in remote galaxies in which the stellar population can only be studied in integrated light. This IAU Symposium covered the entire range of galaxies in its study of their stellar populations. Interspersed with theoretical papers, the wealth of observational results provides an important state-of-the-art presentation of the progress that has been made in this field.

Resolving the Stellar Populations of Clumpy Star-Forming Galaxies Using Finite Resolution Deconvolution

Resolving the Stellar Populations of Clumpy Star-Forming Galaxies Using Finite Resolution Deconvolution
Author: Visal Sok
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

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Understanding the physical details of when and where stars form within galaxies remains as one of the key goals in extragalactic astronomy. Kiloparsec-scale, star-forming structures found in distant, irregular galaxies are often suggested to have a crucial role in the stellar mass build-up of galaxies. These structures are generally dubbed as star-forming clumps and the host galaxies as clumpy galaxies. The origin and evolution of clumpy galaxies have not been well-constrained, as the study of clumpy galaxies requires high resolution and multi-wavelength observations to resolve these compact structures and to infer their physical properties. Current efforts are directed toward space-based slitless spectroscopy and ground-based adaptive optics, but such studies are generally limited to smaller samples owing to the need for long integration times. We present an affordable alternative, in which we apply an image deconvolution algorithm (finite resolution deconvolution) on ground-based images of the Cosmic Evolution Survey field to provide resolved colour and stellar population maps for ~20000 distant galaxies. We track the evolution of the fraction of galaxies that exhibit clumpy morphologies as a function of redshift. Such measurements are essential in order to provide further constraints on the origin of star-forming clumps and their role in galaxy evolution.

Old Stellar Populations

Old Stellar Populations
Author: Santi Cassisi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3527665544

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The book discusses the theoretical path to decoding the information gathered from observations of old stellar systems. It focuses on old stellar systems because these are the fossil record of galaxy formation and provide invaluable information ont he evolution of cosmic structures and the universe as a whole. The aim is to present results obtained in the past few years for theoretical developments in low mass star research and in advances in our knowledge of the evolution of old stellar systems. A particularly representative case is the recent discovery of multiple stellar populations in galactic globular clusters that represents one of the hottest topics in stellar and galactic astrophysics and is discussed in detail. Santi Cassisi has authored about 270 scientific papers, 150 of them in peer-reviewed journals, and the title Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations.