Discriminating among stellar population synthesis models of the TP-AGB phase in early quiescent galaxies
Abstract
Galactic evolution at high redshifts is largely understood through stellar population synthesis (SPS) modeling of spectra and photometry integrated over all starlight of a galaxy. However, complex and poorly understood stellar phases like the unstable thermally-pulsating asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase make SPS modeling a difficult task. Recent models fail to agree on the TP-AGB contribution to the infrared luminosity, leading to significant discrepancy among the properties derived from modern SPS models when applied to early galaxies. Here we provide a thorough assessment of each of the most widely used SPS models by comparing their results and assessing their accuracy in modeling our unique dataset. We combine high-resolution spectroscopic observations from Keck/MOSFIRE with photometric data for 21 early quiescent galaxies with redshifts of z ~ 2. These galaxies are around the age of peak TP-AGB activity, between ~0.3 and 2 Gyr, and therefore provide an ideal test of the models. We find that models with a “light” TP-AGB contribution provide much better descriptions of our galaxies at ages of ~1 Gyr or less. This is true at high statistical significance and holds for models with or without dust reddening. However, contrary to previous studies, the model-dependent photometrically estimated ages are similar among the models, but they show only moderate agreement with the more model-independent spectroscopic ages derived from stellar absorption lines. The largest discrepancies are found for the Charlot & Bruzual (2007) models which show an artificial clustering of ages around 1 Gyr. The TP-AGB “light” models require more reddening, which can be independently tested by examining dust emission in the mid-infrared. The modeled fluxes are also mostly consistent with mid-infrared observations, with the exception of one model. Resolving these differences among the models will substantially strengthen our estimates of the properties of early quiescent galaxies.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AAS...22934719M