Published in

Oxford University Press (OUP), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2020

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa629

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Surface Brightness Fluctuation spectra to constrain stellar population properties

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract We present a new set of Surface Brightness Fluctuation spectra computed with the E-MILES stellar population synthesis models. The model SBF spectra cover the range λλ 1680 − 50000 Å at moderately high resolution, all based on extensive empirical stellar libraries. The models span the metallicity range $-2.3\le \mbox{$\mbox{[M/H]}$}\le +0.26$ for a suite of IMF types with varying slopes. These predictions can complement and aid fluctuation magnitudes studies, permitting a first order approximation by applying filter responses to the SBF spectra to obtain spectroscopic SBF magnitudes. We provide a recipe for obtaining the latter and discuss their uncertainties and limitations. We compare our spectroscopic SBF magnitudes to photometric data of a sample of early-type galaxies. We also show that the SBF spectra can be very useful for constraining relevant stellar population parameters. We find small (<5%) mass-fractions of extremely metal-poor components ($\mbox{$\mbox{[M/H]}$}<-1$) on the top of the dominant, old and metal-rich stellar population. These results put stringent constraints on the early stages of galaxy formation in massive elliptical galaxies. This is remarkable given the high degree of degeneracy of the standard spectral analysis to such metal-poor stellar populations in the visible and in the near-IR. The new SBF models show great potential for exploiting ongoing surveys, particularly those based on narrow-band filters.

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