Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 2013. 51:393-455 Copyright © 2013 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

Reprinted with kind permission from Annual Reviews, 4139 El Camino Way, Palo Alto, California, USA

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Abstract: The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies are shaped by nearly every physical property of the system, including the star formation history, metal content, abundance pattern, dust mass, grain size distribution, star-dust geometry, and interstellar radiation field. The principal goal of stellar population synthesis (SPS) is to extract these variables from observed SEDs. In this review I provide an overview of the SPS technique and discuss what can be reliably measured from galaxy SEDs. Topics include stellar masses, star formation rates and histories, metallicities and abundance patterns, dust properties, and the stellar initial mass function.

Key words: stars, abundances, dust, stellar populations, galaxies: stellar content, galaxy evolution

Table of Contents

• INTRODUCTION
• OVERVIEW OF STELLAR POPULATION SYNTHESIS
• The Simple Stellar Population
• Dust
• Composite Stellar Populations
• Nebular Emission
• Fitting Models to Data
• MASS-TO-LIGHT RATIOS & STELLAR MASSES
• Techniques & Uncertainties
• Uncertainties in M / L due to Stellar Evolution Uncertainties
• Stellar Masses at High Redshift
• Summary
• STAR FORMATION RATES, HISTORIES, & STELLAR AGES
• Measuring SFRs
• Light-Weighted Mean Ages
• Which Model SFHs to Use?
• Non-Parametric Star Formation Histories
• Low-Level Star Formation
• Summary
• STELLAR METALLICITIES & ABUNDANCE PATTERNS
• The Age-Metallicity Degeneracy
• Photometric Metallicities
• Spectroscopic Metallicities
• Abundance Patterns
• The Low-Metallicity Tail
• Summary
• DUST
• Total Dust Attenuation
• Constraints on the Attenuation Curve
• Physical Dust Properties
• Cosmic Evolution of IR SEDs
• Summary
• THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION
• Summary
• CONCLUDING REMARKS
• REFERENCES