FASTAR -- II. Semi-resolved evolutionary stellar population models

Abstract

Standard evolutionary synthesis models rely on the assumption of a fully sampled stellar initial mass function (IMF). Under this assumption, the age, chemical composition, and IMF uniquely define the predicted absorption spectra. However, with current instrumentation pushing observations towards higher spatial resolutions and lower surface brightnesses, the assumption of a fully sampled IMF does not always hold true. Here we present the semi-resolved version of the FASTAR models, a comprehensive set of evolutionary synthesis predictions able to reproduce the stochastic behavior of discretely-sampled IMFs. Semi-resolved FASTAR predictions share the same evolutionary principles, ingredients, and features of the integral (fully sampled IMF) version of the FASTAR models, expanding a range of ages from 20 Myr to 14 Gyr, metallicities between -2.5 < [M/H] < +0.3, and several IMF functional forms. Detailed spectroscopic measurements can be carried out within the 3,540-7,400 A wavelength range, and low-resolution spectral energy distributions can also be synthesized over a wider 2,000-to-12,000 A coverage. Semi-resolved FASTAR models also depend on the number of stars contributing to the observed spectra, which determines the effective sampling of the different stellar evolutionary phases along the isochrones. This incomplete sampling implies that semi-resolved FASTAR models are inevitably stochastic. On top of the inherent stochasticity of the models, derived quantities such as equivalent widths, colors, or mass-to-light ratios might present strong deviations compared to standard fully sampled simple stellar population models. This stochasticity dilutes the boundary between model predictions and data, promoting new sampling-based inference approaches. FASTAR semi-resolved models allow for the effective exploration of the parameter space thanks to their optimized, JAX-based computation.