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The history of the Galactic bulge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2017

A. A. Zijlstra
Affiliation:
School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
K. Gesicki
Affiliation:
Centre for Astronomy, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Grudziadzka 5, PL-87-100 Torun, Poland
M. M. Miller Bertolami
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata, UNLP-CONICET, Paseo del Bosque s/n, 1900 La Plata, Argentina
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Abstract

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Planetary nebulae form in stellar populations with ages from 1 to 10 Gyr, and can be used to trace their star formation histories. Here we apply this to the Galactic bulge, where there are indications both for an old origin and for younger stars. We use new stellar models, which have significant different evolutionary speeds during the post-AGB phase. We apply these new models to a sample of 32 planetary nebulae with HST imaging and VLT spectroscopy. The results show evidence for an old starburst, followed by continuous star formation until at least 2Gyr ago. This agrees very well with recent analysis of colour-magnitude diagrams of the bulge. We show that the new models can also explain the [OIII] luminosity functions, and predict the uniform luminosity cut-off both in spiral galaxies and old elliptical galaxies.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2017 

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