Research Division Seminar
MILES: population synthesis for the 21st century

Abstract

We present the new stellar population synthesis models based on the empirical stellar spectral library MILES, which can be regarded nowadays as standard in the field of stellar population studies. The synthetic SEDs cover the whole optical range at resolution 2.3 Å (FWHM). The unprecedented stellar parameter coverage of MILES allowed us to extend our model predictions from intermediate- to very-old age regimes, and the metallicity coverage from super-solar to [M/H] = -2.3. Observed spectra can be studied by means of full spectrum fitting or line-strengths. For the latter we propose a new Line Index System (LIS) to avoid the intrinsic uncertainties associated with the popular Lick/IDS system and provide more appropriate, uniform, spectral resolution. We present a web-page with a suite of on-line tools to facilitate the handling and transformation of the spectra. Online examples with practical applications to work with stellar spectra for a variety of instrumental setups will be shown. Furthermore we will also show examples of how to compute spectra and colors with varying instrumental setup, redshift and velocity dispersion for a suite of Star Formation Histories.