The optical and near-infrared colors of galaxies. 2: Spectral classification

Details The optical and near-infrared colors of galaxies. 2: Spectral classification The optical and near-infrared colors of galaxies. 2: Spectral classification

Jan 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995aj....109...87b&link_type=abstract

The Astronomical Journal (ISSN 0004-6256), vol. 109, no. 1669, p. 87-120

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

35

Galaxies, Infrared Photometry, Spectrum Analysis, Stellar Color, Astronomical Models, Broadband, Color-Color Diagram, Extremely High Frequencies, Luminosity, Red Shift, Stellar Spectrophotometry

Scientific paper

We have used optical and near-infrared photometry of a well defined sample of field galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts to study and characterize the trends and dispersions of rest-frame colors at intermediate redshifts of z less than or = 0.3. We have constructed a simple spectral synthesis model which serves to determine the information available in our five bands (U, J, F, N, and K) to constrain the stellar composition of galaxies, as well as to classify spectrally our sample. We find that a simple model consisting of two stellar spectral types can reproduce well the observed broadband colors, but only if the types are allowed to vary. The five primary galaxy spectral types resulting from this model are bk, bm, am, fm, and gm (lower-case letters refer to steller types B, K, etc.), and are distinct both in stellar type and mixture. We describe how our spectral synthesis model, when fit to the observed colors of galaxies, provides an accurate interpolative means for determining rest-frame colors. The kappa-corrections calculated in this way are consistent with more sophisticated models and observed spectral energy distributions of local galaxies. Color-luminosity effects are observed in both V-K and U-V for all galaxy types over a combined range of 10 magnitudes. The range of colors at a fixed absolute magnitude is comparable to the change in mean color over the observed absolute magnitude range. In contrast to studies of galaxies segregated by Hubble type, we find no evidence for a strong galaxy spectral type dependence on the slope of the color-luminosity correlation. If physical parameters, such as age and metallicity give rise to the relationship between color and luminosity, they must conspire to produce similar effects for all galaxy spectral types.

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