The APOGEE Library of Infrared SSP Templates (A-LIST): High-resolution Simple Stellar Population Spectral Models in the H Band

Integrated light spectroscopy from galaxies can be used to study the stellar populations that cannot be resolved into individual stars. This analysis relies on stellar population synthesis (SPS) techniques to study the formation history and structure of galaxies. However, the spectral templates available for SPS are limited, especially in the near-infrared (near-IR). We present A-LIST (APOGEE Library of Infrared SSP Templates), a new set of high-resolution, near-IR SSP spectral templates spanning a wide range of ages (2-12 Gyr), metallicities ( - 2.2 < [M/H] < + 0.4) and alpha abundances ( - 0.2 < [alpha/M] < + 0.4). This set of SSP templates is the highest resolution (R similar to 22, 500) available in the near-IR, and the first such based on an empirical stellar library. Our models are generated using spectra of similar to 300,000 stars spread across the Milky Way, with a wide range of metallicities and abundances, from the APOGEE survey. We show that our model spectra provide accurate fits to M31 globular cluster spectra taken with APOGEE, with best-fit metallicities agreeing with those of previous estimates to within similar to 0.1 dex. We also compare these model spectra to lower-resolution E-MILES models and demonstrate that we recover the ages of these models to within similar to 1.5 Gyr. This library is available in .