Near-infrared spectroscopy of stellar populations in nearby spiral galaxies

Abstract

We present high spatial resolution, medium spectral resolution near-infrared (NIR) H- and K-band long-slit spectroscopy for a sample of 29 nearby (z < 0.01) inactive spiral galaxies, to study the composition of their NIR stellar populations. These spectra contain a wealth of diagnostic stellar absorption lines, e.g. MgI 1.575 micron, SiI 1.588 micron, CO (6-3) 1.619 micron, MgI 1.711 micron, NaI 2.207 micron, CaI 2.263 micron and the 12CO and 13CO bandheads longward of 2.29 micron. We use NIR absorption features to study the stellar population and star formation properties of the spiral galaxies along the Hubble sequence, and we produce the first high spatial resolution NIR HK-band template spectra for low redshift spiral galaxies along the Hubble sequence. These templates will find applications in a variety of galaxy studies. The strength of the absorption lines depends on the luminosity and/or temperature of stars and, therefore, spectral indices can be used to trace the stellar population of galaxies. The entire sample testifies that the evolved red stars completely dominate the NIR spectra, and that the hot young star contribution is virtually nonexistent.

13 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to MNRAS. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:astro-ph/0403133

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• A Spectral Atlas of HII Galaxies in the Near-Infrared
• Spatial distributions of core-collapse supernovae in infrared-bright galaxies
• Differences between CO- and calcium triplet-derived velocity dispersions in spiral galaxies: evidence for central star formation?
• The puzzling interpretation of NIR indices: The case of NaI2.21
• Spectral Synthesis of Star-forming Galaxies in the Near-Infrared
• A panchromatic spatially resolved study of the inner 500 pc of NGC 1052 - I: Stellar population
• Stellar kinematics in the nuclear regions of nearby LIRGs with VLT-SINFONI. Comparison with gas phases and implications for dynamical mass estimations
• Near Infrared spectroscopic indices for unresolved stellar populations. I. Template galaxy spectra
• Near-infrared spectroscopic indices for unresolved stellar populations. II. Index measurements
• SMARTY: The mileS Moderate resolution neAr-infRared sTellar librarY