We present the results on the star formation history and extinction in the disk of M82 over spatial scales of 10 (~180 pc). Multi-band photometric data covering from the far ultraviolet to the near infrared bands were fitted to a grid of synthetic sp
ectral energy distributions. We obtained distribution functions of age and extinction for each of the 117 apertures analyzed, taking into account observational errors through Monte-Carlo simulations. These distribution functions were fitted with gaussian functions to obtain the mean ages and extinctions along with errors on them. The analyzed zones include the high surface brightness complexes defined by OConnell & Mangano (1978). We found that these complexes share the same star formation history and extinction as the field stellar populations in the disk. There is an indication that the stellar populations are marginally older at the outer disk (450 Myr at ~3 kpc) as compared to the inner disk (100 Myr at 0.5 kpc). For the nuclear regions (radius less than 500 pc), we obtained an age of less than 10 Myr. The results obtained in this work are consistent with the idea that the 0.5-3 kpc part of the disk of M82 formed around 90% of the stellar mass in a star-forming episode that started around 450 Myr ago lasting for about 350 Myr. We found that field stars are the major contributors to the flux over the spatial scales analyzed in this study, with stellar cluster contribution being 7% in the nucleus and 0.7% in the disk.
The M82 galaxy has been the subject of several studies basically because it is relatively close to to the Milky Way and it displays a strong star formation activity. Using multi-band images of M82 we have determined the age and extinction of the stel
lar population located in regions with strong UV emission, these region are in the nucleus and the disk of M82. We also have employed the UV images of M82 and the physical properties of its stellar clusters to measure the contribution of the clusters to the detected UV flux. We found that clusters located in the nuclear regions are emitting all the observed UV flux, whereas clusters of the disk emit less than ~10%. Based on the results obtained from this work we can infer that the field stars located in the disk of M82 could have been part of a stellar cluster when they were born.
A mayor problem that arises in the computation of stellar atmosphere models is the self consistent determination of the temperature distribution via the constraint of energy conservation. The energy balance includes the gains due to the absorption of
radiation and the losses due to emission. It is well known that within each one of the two above integrals the part corresponding to spectral ranges whose opacity X(nu) is huge can overcome by many orders of magnitude the part that corresponds to the remaining frequencies. On the other hand, at those frequencies where X(nu) is very large, the mean intensity J(nu) of the radiation field shall be equal, up to many significant digits, to the source function S(nu) and consequently to the Planck function B(nu,T). Then their net share to the energy balance shall be null, albeit separately their contributions to the gain and loss integrals are the most important numerically. Thus the spectral range whose physical contribution to the overall balance is null will dominate numerically both sides of the energy balance equation, and consequently the errors on the determination of J(nu) and S(nu) at these frequencies will falsify the balance. It is possible to circumvent the numerical problem brought about by the foregoing circumstances by solving the radiative transfer equation for the variable I(n,nu) - S(nu), instead of the customary intensity I(n,nu). We present here a novel iterative algorithm, based on iteration factors already employed by us with success, which makes it possible a fast correction of the temperature by computing directly the difference between the radiative losses and gains at each step of the iterations.
We present preliminary results on the calculation of synthetic spectra obtained with the stellar model atmospheres developed by Cardona, Crivellari, and Simonneau. These new models have been used as input within the SYNTHE series of codes developed b
y Kurucz. As a first step we have tested if SYNTHE is able to handle these models which go down to log tau(Ross)= -13. We have successfully calculated a synthetic solar spectrum in the wavelength region 2000--4500 A at high resolution (R=522,000). Within this initial test we have found that layers at optical depths with log tau(Ross) < -7 significantly affect the mid-UV properties of a synthetic spectrum computed from a solar model. We anticipate that these new extended models will be a valuable tool for the analysis of UV stellar light arising from the outermost layers of the atmospheres.
