Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T20:28:14.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Some Insights into the Photometric Evolution of Galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

Peeter Traat*
Affiliation:
European Southern Observatory, D-8046 Garching b. München, Germany Tartu Astrophysical Observatory, 202444 Tõravere, Estonia

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The photometric (spectral) evolution is but one aspect of a more universal central question in modern astrophysics — the complex problem of formation and evolution of galaxies. The method used to follow the photometric evolution is straightforward, consisting in computing on the basis of adopted prescriptions for star formation the stellar populations present at various moments and summing up the contributions of all the multitude of stars of different ages and evolutionary stages. The usual strategy is to neglect the dynamics and chemical changes of matter, although during the initial collapse of a galaxy and rapid enrichment of its matter both processes should be important contributors shaping the forming stellar populations. Other widely used simplifications are the rejection of interstellar absorption and the restriction of models to the volume element with constant star formation time scale in its borders (so-called “one-zone models”, they stricly apply to the infinitely narrow ellipsoidal shells in real galaxies). An additional postulate that the region considered is closed and isolated, having not been subjected to interactions or mass exchange with the surroundings, is introduced in the simpliest closed “classical” or “canonical” models (Traat 1988), computed e.g. by Tinsley (1972), Searle et al. (1973), Traat and Einasto (1979), and others. Such assumption, however, is not always valid and some objects need to be modelled by burst models or more universal accretion models.

Type
III. The Stellar Populations of Non-Resolved Galaxies
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 

References

Gallagher, T., Hunter, D., Tutukov, A.V. 1984, Astrophys. J. , 284, 544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, R.B., Tinsley, B.M. 1978, Astrophys. J. , 219, 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, G.E., Scalo, J. 1979, Astrophys. J. Suppl. , 41, 513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, L., Sargent, W.L.W., Bagnuolo, W. 1973, Astrophys. J. , 179, 427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinsley, B.M. 1972, Astron. Astrophys. , 20, 383.Google Scholar
Traat, P., Einasto, J. 1979, Publ. Tartu Astrophys. Obs. , 47, 140.Google Scholar
Traat, P. 1988, Tartu Astrofüüs. Obs. Teated 91, 23.Google Scholar