Abstract
A new method to detect and study young star clusters is presented. This is based on the knowledge that the light of stellar populations with ages between ~ 200 Myr and ~ 1÷2 Gyr is dominated by very red, bright AGB stars. Star clusters undergoing this so-called ‘AGB phase transition’ are featured by very red V–K colours, like those of Magellanic Clouds clusters, while optical colours like B–V remain blue typical for young populations. The best channel for detecting star clusters in this age range is therefore the near 1R. From the theoretical side, SSP models including properly the contribution of the bright AGB are required (Maraston, 1998). Using this strategy, we succesfully detected the AGB phase transition among the clusters of the merger remnant galaxy NGC 7252 (see Maraston et al., 2001).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Maraston, C.: 1998, MNRAS 300, 872.
Maraston, C., Kissler-Patig, M., Brodie, J., Barmby, R. and Huchra, J.: 2001, AandA 370, 176.
Miller, B.W., Whitmore, B.C., Schweizer, F. and Fall, S.M.: 1997, AJ 114, 2381.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Maraston, C., Kissler-Patig, M., Brodie, J., Barmby, P., Huchra, J. (2002). AGB Phase Transition in Globular Clusters: A Tool for Dating Starbursts. In: Sauvage, M., Stazińska, G., Schaerer, D. (eds) The Evolution of Galaxies. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3311-3_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3311-3_24
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6020-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3311-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive