Modeling the Stellar Populations in the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
Andy Layden (Bowling Green)
The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, discovered in 1994, is a small,
gas-poor galaxy located on the opposite side of the Galactic bulge from
the Sun. As the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, it presents
an unprecedented opportunity to study the stellar populations and the
history of star formation in a dwarf galaxy. I will present photometric
observations of Sagittarius, along with a preliminary description of the
ages and metallicities of its stellar components using simple isochrones.
I will then describe results of a more sophisticated technique which matches
synthetic color magnitude diagrams to the observed diagram. I will then
compare the star formation history of Sagittarius with that of other dwarf
galaxies, in an attempt to draw more general conclusions about the histories
of these intriguing galaxies.
