Washington photometry of low surface brightness dwarf galaxies in the Fornax Cluster: constraints on their stellar populations

CELLONE, S. A; FORTE, J. C.

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

The American Astronomical Society

Año: 1996 vol. 416 p. 176 - 185

0004-637X

Integrated colors of a sample of low surface brightness (LSB) dwarf galaxies in the Fornax cluster, obtained from CCD images in the Washington system, are analyzed. This System proves useful to, under certain conditions, disentangle the effects of age and metallicity in a color-color diagram. A comparison with synthetic colors of simple stellar systems of known age and metallicity shows that nearly half the dwarfs have colors that can only be reproduced by a mixture of stars including a moderately young (~10^8 yr) population. In particular, one of the galaxies shows evidence of recent or current star formation.