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arXiv · 2503.14590

The Local Ultraviolet to Infrared Treasury II. Refining Star Formation Histories of Ten Metal-Poor Dwarf Galaxies with Simultaneous UV-Optical Two-CMD Fitting

Yumi Choi·Karoline M. Gilbert·Benjamin F. Williams·Daniel R. Weisz·Evan D. Skillman·Julianne J. Dalcanton·Kristen B. W. McQuinn·Andrew E. Dolphin·Giada Pastorelli·Martha L. Boyer·Karl D. Gordon·L'eo Girardi·Maude Gull
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Abstract

We present the star formation histories (SFHs) of ten metal-poor (<12% Zsun), star-forming dwarf galaxies from the Local Ultraviolet to Infrared Treasury (LUVIT) survey. The derived SFHs exhibit significant variability, consistent with the irregular star formation expected for dwarf galaxies. Using synthetic near ultraviolet (UV) and optical CMDs with various yet targeted configurations for dust and input SFHs, we quantitatively demonstrate that simultaneous modeling of the UV and optical CMDs ("UVopt" case) improves the precision of SFH measurements in recent time bins up to ~1 Gyr, compared to the classical single optical CMD modeling ("Opt-only" case). The UVopt case reduces uncertainties relative to the Opt-only case by ~4-8% over the past 10 Myr, ~8-20% over 100 Myr, and ~8-14% over 1 Gyr, across various dust configurations and input SFHs. Additionally, we demonstrate discrepancies in stellar models for blue core helium-burning (BHeB) stars at the low metallicity regime. This discrepancy can artificially inflate star formation rate (SFR) estimates in younger age bins by misinterpreting the evolved BHeB stars as reddened upper main-sequence (MS) stars. Incorporating UV data improves BHeB-MS separation and mitigates the limitations of current low metallicity stellar models. Comparisons of the UVopt SFHs with Ha and FUV-based SFRs reconfirm that Ha is an unreliable tracer over its nominal 10 Myr timescale for low-SFR galaxies, while FUV provides a more reliable tracer but yields SFR_FUV values up to twice those of CMD-based _100Myr. Our findings underscore the importance of UV data in refining recent SFHs in low-metallicity environments.

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Yumi Choi, Karoline M. Gilbert, Benjamin F. Williams, Daniel R. Weisz, Evan D. Skillman, Julianne J. Dalcanton, Kristen B. W. McQuinn, Andrew E. Dolphin, Giada Pastorelli, Martha L. Boyer, Karl D. Gordon, L'eo Girardi, Maude Gull. 2025-03-18. The Local Ultraviolet to Infrared Treasury II. Refining Star Formation Histories of Ten Metal-Poor Dwarf Galaxies with Simultaneous UV-Optical Two-CMD Fitting. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14590

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