AAS 197, January 2001
Session 30. Dwarf and Elliptical Galaxies
Oral, Monday, January 8, 2001, 1:30-3:00pm, Royal Plam 5/6

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[30.01] The Evolutionary History of Local Star-Forming Dwarf Galaxies

A. Aloisi, C. Leitherer (STScI)

We present the state of the art of a project to infer the spectro-photometric and chemical evolution history of some benchmark nearby (d\,=\,2\,--\,10\,Mpc) star-forming dwarf galaxies (I~Zw~18, NGC~1569 and NGC~1705). The project is carried out with HST data in different spectral ranges. Imaging in the optical/NIR band (WFPC2/NICMOS) will allow to resolve the stellar populations of these galaxies. Their star formation history over a Hubble time will be inferred by comparing the observed color-magnitude diagrams with synthetic ones. Spectroscopy in the UV band (FOS, GHRS, STIS) of HII regions / Super Star Clusters and a few individual stars, will allow to deduce chemical abundances in both the gas and the stars, gas kinematics, and its interaction with the stellar population. All the information will converge into the chemical evolution models, rendering possible the reconstruction of the photometric-stellar and spectro-chemical properties of starbursting systems as a function of time. These results will be finally compared to the spectro-photometric features of the unresolved stellar populations at high redshift, i.e. faint blue galaxies and absorbing systems, in the context of galaxy evolution.


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