Preface IX
Abbreviations and Acronyms XIII
Color Plates XV
1 Firm and Less Firm Outcomes of Stellar Evolution Theory 1
1.1 A Brief Journey through Stellar Evolution 1
1.1.1 A 9M? Star 1
1.1.2 The Evolution of Stars with Solar Composition 8
1.1.3 Dependence on Initial Chemical Composition 12
1.1.4 The Asymptotic Giant Branch Phase 15
1.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of Stellar EvolutionaryModels 18
1.2.1 Microphysics 19
1.2.2 Macrophysics 20
1.3 The Initial Mass-Final Mass Relation 31
2 The Fundamentals of Evolutionary Population Synthesis 35
2.1 The Stellar Evolution Clock 35
2.2 The Evolutionary Flux 38
2.3 The Fuel Consumption Theorem 39
2.4 Fuel Consumptions 42
2.5 Population Synthesis Using Isochrones 46
2.6 The Luminosity Evolution of Stellar Populations 47
2.7 The Specific Evolutionary Flux 49
2.8 The IMF Scale Factor 51
2.9 Total and Specific Rates of Mass Return 52
2.10 Mass and Mass-to-Light Ratio 56
2.11 IMF-Dependent and IMF-Independent Quantities 57
2.12 The Age-Metallicity Degeneracy 58
3 Resolving Stellar Populations 61
3.1 The Stellar Populations of Pixels and Frames 61
3.1.1 The Stellar Population of a Frame 61
3.1.2 The Stellar Population of a Pixel 64
3.2 Simulated Observations and Their Reduction 68
4 Age Dating Resolved Stellar Populations 77
4.1 Globular Cluster Ages 77
4.1.1 Absolute and Relative Globular Cluster Ages 78
4.1.2 Globular Clusters with Multiple Populations 80
4.2 The Age of the Galactic Bulge 83
4.3 Globular Clusters in the Magellanic Clouds 86
4.4 Stellar Ages of the M31 Spheroid 88
4.4.1 The Bulge of M31 88
4.4.2 The M31 Halo and Giant Stream 90
4.5 The Star Formation Histories of Resolved Galaxies 92
4.5.1 The Mass-Specific Production 93
4.5.2 Decoding the CMD 98
4.5.3 The Specific Production Method 102
4.5.4 The Synthetic CMD Method 104
4.5.5 An Example: the Stellar Population in the Halo of the Centaurus A Galaxy 106
5 The Evolutionary Synthesis of Stellar Populations 113
5.1 Simple Stellar Populations 113
5.2 Spectral Libraries 115
5.2.1 Empirical Spectral Libraries 115
5.2.2 Model Atmosphere Libraries 116
5.3 Composite Stellar Populations 116
5.4 Evolving Spectra 118
5.4.1 The Spectral Evolution of a SSP 118
5.4.2 The Spectral Evolution of Composite Stellar Populations 121
5.4.3 There Are Also Binaries 128
6 Stellar Population Diagnostics of Galaxies 133
6.1 Measuring Star Formation Rates 133
6.1.1 The SFR from the Ultraviolet Continuum 134
6.1.2 The SFR from the Far-Infrared Luminosity 136
6.1.3 The SFR from Optical Emission Lines 137
6.1.4 The SFR from the Soft X-ray Luminosity 138
6.1.5 The SFR from the Radio Luminosity 139
6.2 Measuring the Stellar Mass of Galaxies 140
6.3 Age and Metallicity Diagnostics 143
6.3.1 Star-Forming Galaxies 143
6.3.2 Quenched Galaxies 145
6.4 Star-Forming and Quenched Galaxies through Cosmic Times 153
6.4.1 The Main Sequence of Star-Forming Galaxies 155
6.4.2 The Mass and Environment of Quenched Galaxies 163
6.4.3 Mass Functions 164
7 Supernovae 171
7.1 Observed SN Rates 173
7.2 Core Collapse SNe 175
7.2.1 Theoretical Rates 176
7.2.2 Nucleosynthetic Yields 179
7.3 Thermonuclear Supernovae 184
7.3.1 Evolutionary Scenarios for SNIa Progenitors 185
7.3.2 The Distribution of Delay Times 187
7.3.3 The SD Channel 188
7.3.4 The DD Channel 191
7.3.5 Constraining the DTD and the SNIa Productivity 197
7.3.6 SNIa Yields 201
7.4 The Relative Role of Core Collapse and Thermonuclear Supernovae 202
8 The IMF from Low to High Redshift 207
8.1 How the IMF Affects Stellar Demography 208
8.2 The M/L Ratio of Elliptical Galaxies and the IMF Slope below 1M? 211
8.3 The Redshift Evolution of the M/L Ratio of Cluster Ellipticals and the IMF Slope between 1 and 1.4M? 213
8.4 The Metal Content of Galaxy Clusters and the IMF Slope between 1 and 40 M?, and Above 214
9 Evolutionary Links Across Cosmic Time: an Empirical History of Galaxies 219
9.1 The Growth and Overgrowth of Galaxies 221
9.2 A Phenomenological Model of Galaxy Evolution 224
9.2.1 How Mass Quenching Operates 225
9.2.2 How Environmental Quenching Operates 227
9.2.3 The Evolving Demography of Galaxies 229
9.2.4 Caveats 232
9.2.5 The Physics of Quenching 234
10 The Chemical Evolution of Galaxies, Clusters, and the Whole Universe 237
10.1 Clusters of Galaxies 237
10.1.1 Iron in the Intracluster Medium and the Iron Mass-to-Light Ratio 238
10.1.2 The Iron Share between ICM and Cluster Galaxies 244
10.1.3 Elemental Ratios 245
10.1.4 Metal Production: the Parent Stellar Populations 247
10.1.5 Iron from SNIa 248
10.1.6 Iron and Metals from Core Collapse SNe 249
10.2 Metals from Galaxies to the ICM: Ejection versus Extraction 250
10.3 Clusters versus Field and the Overall Metallicity of the Universe 252
10.4 Clusters versus the Chemical Evolution of the Milky Way 254
Index 261