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J. S. Serven, G. Worthey (Washington State)
Lick/IDS system absorption feature indices have been used to discover that abundance ratios such as [Mg/Fe] and [Na/Fe] in external galaxies do not necessarily track the ratios observed in the Milky Way. However, the Lick system measures only a handful of the elements that have measurable features present in the spectra of, for instance, elliptical galaxies. In order to begin to exploit the chemical information present in galaxy spectra, we have begun a systematic exploration using synthetic spectra to isolate the parts of the spectrum affected by abundance changes of individual elements at low resolution. We present definitions of new indices measured in the Lick style but tuned to individual elements of nucleosynthetic interest. This work is a precursor to modeling the features in integrated light and comparing them to galaxy spectra.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.