4.7 Article

BEING WISE. I. VALIDATING STELLAR POPULATION MODELS AND M-*/L RATIOS AT 3.4 and 4.6 mu m

Journal

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 797, Issue 1, Pages -

Publisher

IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/797/1/55

Keywords

galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: fundamental parameters; globula clusters: general; infrared: galaxies

Funding

  1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  2. DAGAL network from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme FP7 under REA [PITN-GA-2011-289313]
  3. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  4. Participating Institutions
  5. National Science Foundation
  6. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, we have measured near infra-red (NIR) photometry of a diverse sample of dust-free stellar systems (globular clusters, dwarf and giant early-type galaxies) which have metallicities that span the range -2.2 < [Fe/H] (dex) < 0.3. This dramatically increases the sample size and broadens the metallicity regime over which the 3.4 (W1) and 4.6 mu m (W2) photometry of stellar populations have been examined. We find that the W1-W2 colors of intermediate and old (>2Gyr) stellar populations are insensitive to the age of the stellar population, but that the W1 - W2 colors become bluer with increasing metallicity, a trend not well reproduced by most stellar population synthesis (SPS) models. In common with previous studies, we attribute this behavior to the increasing strength of the CO absorption feature located in the 4.6 mu m bandpass with metallicity. Having used our sample to validate the efficacy of some of the SPS models, we use these models to derive stellar mass-to-light ratios in the W1 and W2 bands. Utilizing observational data from the SAURON and ATLAS3D surveys, we demonstrate that these bands provide extremely simple, yet robust stellar mass tracers for dust free older stellar populations that are freed from many of the uncertainties common among optical estimators.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available