Age dating stellar populations in the near infrared: an absolute age indicator from the presence/absence of red supergiants

作者：Gazak J Z^*; Bastian N; Kudritzki R P; Adamo A; Davies B; Plez B; Urbaneja M A

来源：Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2013, 430(1): L35-L39.

DOI：10.1093/mnrasl/sls043

• supergiants
• galaxies: star clusters: general

The determination of age is a critical component in the study of a population of stellar clusters. In this Letter, we present a new absolute age indicator for young massive star clusters based on J-H colour. This novel method identifies clusters as older or younger than 5.7 +/- 0.8 Myr based on the appearance of the first population of red supergiant stars. We test the technique on the stellar cluster population of the nearby spiral galaxy, M83, finding good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The localization of this technique to the near-IR promises that it may be used well into the future with space-and ground-based missions optimized for near-IR observations.

• 出版日期2013-3