On the self-consistency of evolutionary synthesis models

Cerviño, M.
Referencia bibliográfica

Astrophysics and Space Science, v. 284, Issue 2, p. 897-900 (2003).

Fecha de publicación:
4
2003
Número de autores
1
Número de autores del IAC
0
Número de citas
1
Número de citas referidas
1
Descripción
Evolutionary synthesis models have been used to study the physical properties of unresolved populations in a wide range of scenarios. Unfortunately, their self-consistency is difficult to test and there are some theoretical open questions without an answer: (1) The change of the homology relations assumed in the computation of isochrones due to the effect of stellar winds (or rotation) and the discontinuities in the stellar evolution are not considered. (2) There is no consensus about how the isochrones must be integrated. (3) The discreteness of the stellar populations (that produce an intrinsic statistical dispersion) usually are not taken into account, and model results are interpreted in a deterministic way instead of a statistical one. The objective of this contribution is to present some inconsistencies in the computation and some cautions in the application of the results of such codes.