Evolutionary population synthesis

Abstract

Based on the population synthesis results¹ for the nuclear region of the elliptical galaxy NGC5044, possible theoretical Age Metallicity Relations (AMR) have been derived, reproducing the stellar luminosity distribution over age A and metallicity Z. A self-consistent method, used to constrain the star formation history and chemical evolution of a galaxy directly from its spectrum (i.e. from 3000 – 10000 å) is presented. This method is predominantly based on the modelling of stellar luminosity contributions obtained by spectral decomposition methods with those theoretically calculated using a conventional galactic evolution model, incorporating a parametrised Star Formation Rate (SFR) and Initial Mass Function (IMF). Related model parameters were constrained by minimizing the λ²– test defined by the corresponding luminosity distributions.