The Effect of Age and Stellar Model Choice on Globular Cluster Color-to-Metallicity Conversions

TL;DR

This study investigates how different stellar models and assumed ages affect the conversion of globular cluster colors to metallicity, finding that despite model differences, the impact on metallicity distributions is minimal.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the dependence of color-metallicity relations on stellar models and ages, extending previous calibration work.

Findings

Differences between stellar models exist but have limited impact on metallicity results.

Color-to-metallicity relations are robust against model and age variations.

The derived metallicity distributions remain consistent despite model differences.

Abstract

The photometric colors of globular clusters (GCs) act as effective proxies for metallicity, since all normally used optical/IR color indices exhibit a nonlinear but monotonic relation between their integrated color and their metallicity. One color index, (g - z) or (F475W - F850LP), has been spectroscopically calibrated in several studies, providing leverage to define color-to-metallicity conversions for other indices. In this paper, building on the work of arXiv:2307.01863, we study the GC color-metallicity relation in more detail by testing the dependence of the relations on different suites of stellar models and different assumed GC ages. Though noticeable differences between models exist, we find that the net effect on the derived GCS metallicity distributions is small.