Stellar populations and physical properties of starbursts in the Antennae galaxy from self-consistent modelling of MUSE spectra

TL;DR

This study models stellar and nebular spectra of starburst regions in the Antennae galaxy using self-consistent libraries, revealing properties like metallicity, age, and gas conditions through spectrum fitting of MUSE data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel self-consistent modeling approach combining Starburst99 and Cloudy to analyze high-resolution spectra of starbursts in the Antennae galaxy, comparing different stellar evolutionary models.

Findings

Starbursts have near-solar metallicity.

Gas in the Western loop is slightly more enriched.

Young starbursts are in the overlap and western-loop regions.

Abstract

We have modelled the stellar and nebular continua and emission-line intensity ratios of massive stellar populations in the Antennae galaxy using high resolution and self-consistent libraries of model HII regions around central clusters of aging stars. The model libraries are constructed using the stellar population synthesis code, Starburst99, and photoionisation model, Cloudy. The Geneva and PARSEC stellar evolutionary models are plugged into Starburst99 to allow comparison between the two models. Using a spectrum-fitting methodology that allows the spectral features in the stellar and nebular continua (e.g. Wolf-Rayet features, Paschen jump), and emission-line diagnostics to constrain the models, we apply the libraries to the high-resolution MUSE spectra of the starbursting regions in the Antennae galaxy. Through this approach, we were able to model the continuum emission from Wolf-Rayet stars and extract stellar and gas metallicities, ages, electron temperatures and densities of starbursts by exploiting the full spectrum. From the application to the Antennae galaxy, we find that (1) the starbursts in the Antennae galaxy are characterised by stellar and gas metallicities of around solar, (2) the star-forming gas in starbursts in the Western loop of NGC 4038 appear to be more enriched, albeit slightly, than the rest of galaxy, (3) the youngest starbursts are found across the overlap region and over parts of the western-loop, though in comparison, the regions in the western-loop appear to be at a slightly later stage in star-formation than the overlap region, and (4) the results obtained from fitting the Geneva and Parsec models are largely consistent.