We present a near infrared study of the spectral components of the continuum
in the inner 500×500 pc2 of the nearby Seyfert galaxy Mrk573 using
adaptive optics near-infrared integral field spectroscopy with the instrument
NIFS of the Gemini North Telescope at a spatial resolution of ∼50 pc. We
performed spectral synthesis using the {\sc starlight} code and constructed
maps for the contributions of different age components of the stellar
population: young (age≤100 Myr), young-intermediate (100<age≤700
Myr), intermediate-old (700 Myr 2 Gyr) to the
near-IR K-band continuum, as well as their contribution to the total stellar
mass. We found that the old stellar population is dominant within the inner 250
pc, while the intermediate age components dominate the continuum at larger
distances. A young stellar component contributes up to ∼20% within the
inner ∼70 pc, while hot dust emission and featureless continuum components
are also necessary to fit the nuclear spectrum, contributing up to 20% of the
K-band flux there. The radial distribution of the different age components in
the inner kiloparsec of Mrk573 is similar to those obtained by our group for
the Seyfert galaxies Mrk1066, Mrk1157 and NGC1068 in previous works using a
similar methodology. Young stellar populations (≤100 Myr) are seen in the
inner 200-300 pc for all galaxies contributing with ≥20% of the K-band
flux, while the near-IR continuum is dominated by the contribution of
intermediate-age stars (t=100 Myr-2 Gyr) at larger distances. Older stellar
populations dominate in the inner 250 pc