The stellar populations of spiral disks.II Measuring and modeling the radial distribution of absorption spectral indices

Abstract

The radial distributions of the Mg2 and Fe5270 Lick spectral indices have been measured to large radial distances on the disks of NGC 4303 and NGC 4535 using an imaging technique based on interference filters. These data, added to those of NGC 4321 previously published in Paper I of this series are used to constraint chemical (multiphase) evolutionary models for these galaxies. Because the integrated light of a stellar disk is a time average over the history of the galaxy weighted by the star formation rate, these constraints complement the information on chemical gradients provided by the study of HII regions which, by themselves, can only provide the alpha-elements abundance accumulate over the life of the galaxy. The agreement between the observations and the model predictions shown here lends confidence to the models which are then used to describe the time evolution of galaxy parameters such as star formation rates, chemical gradients, and gradients in the mean age of the stellar population.