Stellar population models at high spectral resolution

By C. Maraston, Gustav Stromback, Icg Portsmouth, United Kingdom.. 2011

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We present new, high-to-intermediate spectral resolution stellar population models, based on four popular libraries of empirical stellar spectra, namely Pickles, ELODIE, STELIB and MILES. These new models are the same as our previous models, but with higher resolution and based on empirical stellar spectra, while keeping other ingredients the same including the stellar energetics, the atmospheric parameters and the treatment of the thermally pulsating asymptotic giant branch and the horizontal branch morphology. We further compute very high resolution (R = 20 000) models based on the theoretical stellar library MARCS which extends to the near-infrared. We therefore provide merged high-resolution stellar population models, extending from ∼1000 to 25 000 A, using our previously published high-resolution theoretical models which extended to the ultraviolet. We compare how these libraries perform in stellar population models and highlight spectral regions where discrepancies are found. We confirm our previous findings that the flux around theV band is lower (in a normalized sense) in models based on empirical libraries than in those based on the BaSeL–Kurucz library, which results in a bluer B − V colour. Most noticeably the theoretical library MARCS gives results fully consistent with the empirical libraries. This same effect is also found in other models using MILES, namely Vazdekis et al. and Conroy & Gunn, even though the latter authors reach the opposite conclusion. The bluer predicted B − V colour (by 0.05 mag in our models) is in better agreement with both the colours of luminous red galaxies and globular cluster data. We test the models on their ability to reproduce, through full spectral fitting, the ages and metallicities of Galactic globular clusters as derived from colour–magnitude diagram (CMD) fitting and find overall good agreement. We also discuss extensively the Lick indices calculated directly on the integrated MILES-based spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and compare them with element ratio-sensitive index models. We find a good agreement between the two models, if the metallicity-dependent chemical pattern of the Milky Way stars is properly taken into account in this comparison. As a consequence, the ages and metallicities of Galactic globular clusters are not well reproduced when one uses straight the MILES-based indices, because subtle chemical effects on individual lines dominate the age derivation. The best agreement with the ages of the calibrating globular clusters is found with either element ratio-sensitive absorption-line models or the full SED fitting, for which no particular weight is given to selected lines.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/748d3f666eecafe59deed414b64dfb09b0592396

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Citations in the corpus

Age-dating luminous red galaxies observed with the Southern African Large Telescope (2016, methodology): “We also tested other models such as Pegase–HR/ELODIE 3.1 (Le Borgne et al. 2004, PE), Vazdekis/MILES (Vazdekis et al. 2010, VM) and the latest Maraston/MILES models (Maraston & Strömbäck 2011, M11), in order to check any systematic differences.”
MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage – I. Stellar population synthesis models (2012, background): “…libraries, mostly in the visible (e.g., Vazdekis 1999; Bruzual & Charlot 2003; Le Borgne et al. 2004; Conroy & Gunn 2010; Vazdekis et al. 2010; Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Conroy & van Dokkum 2011), but also in other spectral ranges (e.g., Vazdekis et al. 2003; Conroy & van Dokkum 2011;…”
Setting the Stage for Cosmic Chronometers. II. Impact of Stellar Population Synthesis Models Systematics and Full Covariance Matrix (2020, methodology): “Software: BC16,BC03(Bruzual&Charlot2003),M11 (Maraston & Strömbäck 2011), E-MILES (Vazdekis et al. 2016), FSPS (Conroy et al. 2009; Conroy & Gunn 2010), pwlf (Jekel & Venter 2019) APPENDIX A. EXTENDING THE ESTIMATE OF THE PIECEWISE LINEAR SLOPE ACROSS THE KNEES As discussed in Section 2.3, a…”
The Fifteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release of MaNGA-derived Quantities, Data Visualization Tools, and Stellar Library (2018, methodology): “The major update to FIREFLY with respect to DR14 is the extension of the stellar population modeling grid based on the models of Maraston & Strömbäck (2011).”
Structure and Kinematics of Early-Type Galaxies from Integral Field Spectroscopy (2016, background): “…Conroy 2013, for a review) with high spectral resolution based on large empirical spectral libraries (Bruzual & Charlot 2003; Vazdekis et al. 2012; Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Conroy & van Dokkum 2012a), the studies of the stellar population from integralfield data has moved to the…”
Modelling and interpreting spectral energy distributions of galaxies with BEAGLE (2016, background): “Many spectral evolution models available in the literature (e.g. Pégase, Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange 1997; Le Borgne et al. 2004; GALAXEV, Bruzual & Charlot 2003; FSPS, Conroy et al. 2009; ; Vazdekis et al. 2010; MaStro, Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Conroy & van Dokkum 2012a) rely on libraries of obser”
Improving the full spectrum fitting method: accurate convolution with Gauss-Hermite functions (2016, result): “…can consist of combinations of e.g. (i) stellar population models with specific parameters (e.g. Bruzual & Charlot 2003; Vazdekis et al. 2010; Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Conroy & van Dokkum 2012); (ii) individual empirical (e.g. Cenarro et al. 2001; Prugniel & Soubiran 2001; Valdes et al.…”
Evolutionary stellar population synthesis with MILES – II. Scaled-solar and α-enhanced models (2015, methodology): “…employ such libraries are, e.g. Vazdekis (1999), Schiavon et al. (2002), Bruzual & Charlot (2003), Le Borgne et al. (2004), Vazdekis et al. (2010), Maraston & Strömbäck (2011), Conroy & MNRAS 449, 1177–1214 (2015) D ow nloaded from https://academ ic.oup.com /m…”
Improved constraints on the expansion rate of the Universe up to z ∼ 1.1 from the spectroscopic evolution of cosmic chronometers (2012, methodology): “adopted two independent libraries of synthetic spectra: the BC03 models [24] and the new MaStro models [74].”
Raising the bar: new constraints on the Hubble parameter with cosmic chronometers at z ∼ 2 (2015, methodology): “Two stellar population synthesis models have been used: Bruzual & Charlot (2003) (BC03) and Maraston & Strömbäck (2011) (MaStro).”
Stellar masses of SDSS-III/BOSS galaxies at z ∼ 0.5 and constraints to galaxy formation models (2012, methodology): “The correct shape of the model around theV -band has been confirmed using data of star clusters in M31 (Peacock et al. 2011) as well as in the Milky Way (Maraston & Strömbäck 2011).”
SPECTRAL CLASSIFICATION AND REDSHIFT MEASUREMENT FOR THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY (2012, methodology): “Our SSP models are taken from Maraston et al. (2009) and Maraston & Strömbäck (2011), and are based on a combination of theoretical and observational stellar library data from Rodŕıguez-Merino et al. (2005), Sánchez-Blázquez et al. (2006), and Gustafsson et al. (2008).”
The AIMSS Project I: bridging the star cluster, galaxy divide (2014, methodology): “…of all of our CSSs by cross-correlating the input spectra against a SSP spectral library (the high resolution, FWHM = 0.55 Å, ELODIE based models of Maraston & Strömbäck 2011) in the case of optical spectra, and a library of empirical stellar spectra observed with the same setup used for the…”