MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage – I. Stellar population synthesis models

By A. Vazdekis, E. Ricciardelli, A. Cenarro, J. G. Rivero-Gonz'alez, L. A. D'iaz-Garc'ia, J. Falc'on-Barroso. 2012

227 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We extend the spectral range of our stellar population synthesis models based on the MILES and CaT empirical stellar spectral libraries. For this purpose, we combine these two libraries with the Indo-U.S. to construct composite stellar spectra to feed our models. The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) computed with these models and the originally published models are combined to construct composite SEDs for single-age, single-metallicity stellar populations (SSPs) covering the range λλ3465–9469 A at moderately high and uniform resolution (full width at half-maximum = 2.51 A). The colours derived from these SSP SEDs provide good fits to Galactic globular cluster data. We find that the colours involving redder filters are very sensitive to the initial mass function (IMF), as well as a number of features and molecular bands throughout the spectra. To illustrate the potential use of these models, we focus on the Na i doublet at 8200 A and with the aid of the newly synthesized SSP model SEDs, we define a new IMF-sensitive index that is based on this feature, which overcomes various limitations from previous index definitions for low-velocity dispersion stellar systems. We propose an index–index diagram based on this feature and the neighbouring Ca ii triplet at 8600 A, to constrain the IMF if the age and [Na/Fe] abundance are known. Finally we also show a survey-oriented spectrophotometric application which evidences the accurate flux calibration of these models for carrying out reliable spectral fitting techniques. These models are available through our user-friendly website.

Subfields: Analytical Chemistry, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spectroscopy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cf16029502edfb39881019238aec779a5b0dfa8f

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Citations in the corpus

Evolutionary stellar population synthesis with MILES – II. Scaled-solar and α-enhanced models (2015, methodology): “This result is in good agreement with our previous results obtained with the MIUSCAT base models (Ricciardelli et al. 2012).”
Age-dating luminous red galaxies observed with the Southern African Large Telescope (2016, methodology): “…& White 2009; Eldridge & Stanway 2009; Kotulla et al. 2009; Mollá, García-Vargas, & Bressan 2009; Vazdekis et al. 2010; Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Vazdekis et al. 2012) that can be used to generate synthetic spectra to determine different parameters such as age, metallicity, chemical abundance…”
The ATLAS3D Project – XXX. Star formation histories and stellar population scaling relations of early-type galaxies (2015, methodology): “…penalized pixel fitting code (PPXF; Cappellari & Emsellem 2004) to fit a linear combination of SSP model spectra from the MIUSCAT model library (Vazdekis et al. 2012), spanning a regular grid of log (age) (0.1–14 Gyr) and metallicity ([Z/H] = −1.71 to 0.22, equivalent to Z = 0.0004–0.03),…”
BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. I. Spectral Measurements, Derived Quantities, and AGN Demographics (2017, background): “S. Catalog (MIUSCAT) library of stellar spectra (Vazdekis et al. 2012).”
SDSS IV MaNGA – spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams: a proof that many galaxies are LIERs (2016, methodology): “A set of 36 templates from the MIUSCAT SSP library (Vazdekis et al. 2012), spanning a wide range in stellar age (from 60 Myr to 15 Gyr) and four metallicities ([Z/H]=0.2, 0.0, - 0.4, -0.7) are used as a basis set for the fitting.”
UV-extended E-MILES stellar population models: young components in massive early-type galaxies (2016, methodology): “These models have been recently MNRAS 000, 1–31 (2016) extended to the near-IR (Röck et al. 2016) by joining the MIUSCAT SSP spectra (Vazdekis et al. 2012), which apart of MILES also employ the Indo-US (Valdes et al. 2004) and CaT (Cenarro et al. 2001a) stellar libraries, to the SSP spectra…”
New fully empirical calibrations of strong-line metallicity indicators in star forming galaxies (2016, methodology): “(0000) CAT library of spectral templates (Vazdekis et al. 2012; Ricciardelli et al. 2012), an extension of the previous MILES library (Falcón-Barroso et al. 2011; Cenarro et al. 2001; Vazdekis et al. 2010; Sánchez-Blázquez et al. 2006) in which both Indo-U.”
Systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function with velocity dispersion in early-type galaxies (2012, methodology): “We use MIUSCAT SSPs spanning a wide range of ages (1–13 Gyr) and metallicities (−1.0 6 logZ/Z⊙ 6 +0.22), for different values of Γ = {0.3, 0.8, 1.0, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, 2.0, 2.3, 2.8, 3.3}.”
Photometric redshifts for the SDSS Data Release 12 (2016, methodology): “Galaxy templates can be computed theoretically using stellar models, an assumed initial mass function and stellar evolutionary tracks, which is a process known as stellar population synthesis (Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange 1997; Bruzual & Charlot 2003; Maraston & Strömbäck 2011; Vazdekis et al. 2012).”
The stellar IMF in early-type galaxies from a non-degenerate set of optical line indices (2013, methodology): “They compared spectral line strengths sensitive to age, metallicity, and IMF slope of these galaxies with the population synthesis models of Vazdekis et al. (2012).”
SDSS IV MaNGA – metallicity and nitrogen abundance gradients in local galaxies (2017, methodology): “In short, we fit the continuum using a set of simple stellar population models (Vazdekis et al. 2012) and the emission lines with a set of gaussians, one per line.”
Radial variations in the stellar initial mass function of early-type galaxies (2014, methodology): “Fitting different models (e.g. varying slightly the IMF, age, metallicity of MILES SSPs, and/or the polynomial degree, and for different spectra) we estimated that the impact of flux calibration uncertainties may affect significantly TiO1, and to less extent TiO2.”
The ATLAS3D project – XX. Mass–size and mass–σ distributions of early-type galaxies: bulge fraction drives kinematics, mass-to-light ratio, molecular gas fraction and stellar initial mass function (2012, methodology): “They employed different models (Conroy & van Dokkum 2012a) from the ones we adopted (Vazdekis et al. 2012) and used them to fit an independent set of spectra, spanning a larger wavelength range than the SAURON ones.”
A CATALOG OF BULGE, DISK, AND TOTAL STELLAR MASS ESTIMATES FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (2013, background): “…model in our mass estimates, there are many other SPS models based on a variety of stellar evolutionary tracks and spectral libraries that could have been used to the same end (e.g., Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange 1997; Leitherer et al. 1999; Bruzual & Charlot 2003; Maraston 2005; Vazdekis et al. 2012).”
Structure and Kinematics of Early-Type Galaxies from Integral Field Spectroscopy (2016, background): “…population models (see 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…”
SPIDER VIII - constraints on the stellar initial mass function of early-type galaxies from a variety of spectral features (2013, methodology): “Another potentially useful tool is the analysis of (optical-NIR) broad-band colours (Vazdekis et al. 1996, 2012; Ricciardelli et al. 2012).”