Modeling and studying spectra of extragalactic stellar populations
Paula Coelho (NAT/Unicsul)
To understand how galaxies form and evolve is one of the long-standing questions in astronomy. One of the ways to address that question is to study the stellar content of the galaxies through the use of stellar population synthesis techniques, i.e., the modelling of the spectral energy distribution emitted by evolving stellar populations. Spectra - from stars, stellar clusters or galaxies - carries a wealth of information about their source, and to interpret and understand spectral observations heavily relies on our hability to model their spectra. In this talk I will describe the developments achieved in the last few years on modeling the spectra of stellar populations and also present new results on studying extragalactic stellar populations with those models. I will close with open questions still to be clarified, and improvements which are needed.