Photometric entropy of stellar populations and related diagnostic tools
Abstract
Description
We discuss, from a statistical point of view, some leading issues that deal with the study of stellar populations in fully or partially unresolved aggregates, like globular clusters and distant galaxies. A confident assessment of the effective number and luminosity of stellar contributors can provide, in this regard, a very useful interpretative tool to properly assess the observational bias coming from crowding conditions or surface brightness fluctuations. These arguments have led us to introduce a new concept of "photometric entropy" of a stellar population, whose impact on different astrophysical aspects of cluster diagnostic has been reviewed here.
13 pages and 9 figures. An invited contribution to "Resolved Stellar Populations", Cancun (Mexico) Apr 2005. To appear on the proceedings of the conference edited by D. Valls-Gabaud & M. Chavez, ASP Conf. Ser. (ASP: San Francisco). See http://www.bo.astro.it/~eps/home.html for more info and model retrieval
13 pages and 9 figures. An invited contribution to "Resolved Stellar Populations", Cancun (Mexico) Apr 2005. To appear on the proceedings of the conference edited by D. Valls-Gabaud & M. Chavez, ASP Conf. Ser. (ASP: San Francisco). See http://www.bo.astro.it/~eps/home.html for more info and model retrieval