14,096 research outputs found
A grid of Synthetic Spectra for Hot DA White Dwarfs and Its Application in Stellar Population Synthesis
In this work we present a grid of LTE and non-LTE synthetic spectra of hot DA
white dwarfs (WDs). In addition to its usefulness for the determination of
fundamental stellar parameters of isolated WDs and in binaries, this grid will
be of interest for the construction of theoretical libraries for stellar
studies from integrated light. The spectral grid covers both a wide temperature
and gravity range, with 17,000 K <= T_eff <= 100,000 K and 7.0 <= log(g) <=
9.5. The stellar models are built for pure hydrogen and the spectra cover a
wavelength range from 900 A to 2.5 microns. Additionally, we derive synthetic
HST/ACS, HST/WFC3, Bessel UBVRI and SDSS magnitudes. The grid was also used to
model integrated spectral energy distributions of simple stellar populations
and our modeling suggests that DAs might be detectable in ultraviolet bands for
populations older than ~8 Gyr.Comment: to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie
Transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy impact on health-related quality of life
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Senescence in vitro and ionising radiations—the human diploid fibroblast model
The influence of ionising radiations on ageing is still controversial. Since Hayflick established the concept that diploid cells have finite lifespan in vitro, human diploid fibroblast (HDF) cultures have been recognised as a potent experimental model for cytogerontological investigations. In this study HDF cultures in phase II were exposed to acute irradiation with either X-rays on fast neutrons. The replicative potentials and labelling indices with [3H]thymidine were measured post irradiation until the cultures ceased growth in phase III. Cell mortality was measured by cloning. The apparent loss in replicative potential of irradiated mass cultures was wholly attributable to the loss of viable clonogenic cells. The current concept of precocious clonal senescence in vitro as a late effect of irradiation in clonogenic survivors is not supported by the present experiments. Instead, our results suggest that exposure to a single dose of ionising radiations either causes total replicative incapacitation (killing) of HDF cells and their progeny early after irradiation or leaves their replicative potentials unperturbed
A new library of theoretical stellar spectra with scaled-solar and alpha-enhanced mixtures
Theoretical stellar libraries have been increasingly used to overcome
limitations of empirical libraries, e.g. by exploring atmospheric parameter
spaces not well represented in the latter. This work presents a new theoretical
library which covers 3000 Teff 25000\,K, -0.5 log g
5.5, and 12 chemical mixtures covering 0.0017 Z 0.049 at both
scaled-solar and -enhanced compositions. This library complements
previous ones by providing: (i) homogeneous computations of opacity
distribution functions, models atmospheres, statistical surface fluxes and high
resolution spectra; (ii) high resolution spectra with continua slopes corrected
by the effect of predicted lines, and; (iii) two families of -enhanced
mixtures for each scaled-solar iron abundance, to allow studies of the
-enhancement both at `fixed iron' and `fixed Z' cases. Comparisons to
observed spectra were performed and confirm that the synthetic spectra
reproduce well the observations, although there are wavelength regions which
should be still improved. The atmospheric parameter scale of the model library
was compared to one derived from a widely used empirical library, and no
systematic difference between the scales was found. This is particularly
reassuring for methods which use synthetic spectra for deriving atmospheric
parameters of stars in spectroscopic surveys
Abundance patterns in early-type galaxies: is there a 'knee' in the [Fe/H] vs. [alpha/Fe] relation?
Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are known to be enhanced in alpha elements, in
accordance with their old ages and short formation timescales. In this
contribution we aim to resolve the enrichment histories of ETGs. This means we
study the abundance of Fe ([Fe/H]) and the alpha-element groups ([alpha/Fe])
separately for stars older than 9.5 Gyr ([Fe/H]o, [alpha/Fe]o) and for stars
between 1.5 and 9.5 Gyr ([Fe/H]i, [alpha/Fe]i). Through extensive simulation we
show that we can indeed recover the enrichment history per galaxy. We then
analyze a spectroscopic sample of 2286 early-type galaxies from the SDSS
selected to be ETGs. We separate out those galaxies for which the abundance of
iron in stars grows throughout the lifetime of the galaxy, i.e. in which
[Fe/H]o < [Fe/H]i. We confirm earlier work where the [Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe]
parameters are correlated with the mass and velocity dispersion of ETGs. We
emphasize that the strongest relation is between [alpha/Fe] and age. This
relation falls into two regimes, one with a steep slope for old galaxies and
one with a shallow slope for younger ETGs. The vast majority of ETGs in our
sample do not show the 'knee' in the plot of [Fe/H] vs. [alpha/Fe] commonly
observed in local group galaxies. This implies that for the vast majority of
ETGs, the stars younger than 9.5 Gyrs are likely to have been accreted or
formed from accreted gas. The properties of the intermediate-age stars in
accretion-dominated ETGs indicate that mass growth through late (minor) mergers
in ETGs is dominated by galaxies with low [Fe/H] and low [alpha/Fe]. The method
of reconstructing the stellar enrichment histories of ETGs introduced in this
paper promises to constrain the star formation and mass assembly histories of
large samples of galaxies in a unique way.Comment: 22 pages, 25 figures, accepted for publication by A&
Full spectral fitting of Milky Way and M31 globular clusters: ages and metallicities
Context: The formation and evolution of disk galaxies are long standing
questions in Astronomy. Understanding the properties of globular cluster
systems can lead to important insights on the evolution of its host galaxy.
Aims: We aim to obtain the stellar population parameters - age and metallicity
- of a sample of M31 and Galactic globular clusters. Studying their globular
cluster systems is an important step towards understanding their formation and
evolution in a complete way. Methods: Our analysis employs a modern
pixel-to-pixel spectral fitting technique to fit observed integrated spectra to
updated stellar population models. By comparing observations to models we
obtain the ages and metallicities of their stellar populations. We apply this
technique to a sample of 38 globular clusters in M31 and to 41 Galactic
globular clusters, used as a control sample. Results: Our sample of M31
globular clusters spans ages from 150 Myr to the age of the Universe.
Metallicities [Fe/H] range from -2.2 dex to the solar value. The
age-metallicity relation obtained can be described as having two components: an
old population with a flat age-[Fe/H] relation, possibly associated with the
halo and/or bulge, and a second one with a roughly linear relation between age
and metallicity, higher metallicities corresponding to younger ages, possibly
associated with the M31 disk. While we recover the very well known Galactic GC
metallicity bimodality, our own analysis of M31's metallicity distribution
function (MDF) suggests that both GC systems cover basically the same [Fe/H]
range yet M31's MDF is not clearly bimodal. These results suggest that both
galaxies experienced different star formation and accretion histories.Comment: A&A, in pres
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