A detailed two-dimensional stellar population study of M32

del Burgo, C.; Peletier, R. F.; Vazdekis, A.; Arribas, S.; Mediavilla, E.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 321, Issue 2, pp. 227-238.

Advertised on:
2
2001
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
30
Refereed citations
27
Description
We present integral field spectroscopy of the 9×12arcsec2 circumnuclear region of M32 obtained with the 2D_FIS fibre optics spectrographs installed at the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope. From these spectra line-strength maps have been made for about 20 absorption lines, mostly belonging to the Lick system. We find good agreement with long-slit line-strength profiles in the literature, and no radial gradients in the azimuthally averaged absorption line indices. We fit the mean values of each spectral index and colours from the literature for the inner regions of M32 to the models of Vazdekis et al. and Worthey, finding that the present data can be well interpreted for a single stellar population of an intermediate age (~4Gyr) and a metallicity similar to solar (Z=0.02).