Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: Recovering the star formation rate in the solar neighborhood   This paper develops a method for obtaining the star formation histories of a
mixed, resolved population through the use of color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs).
The method provides insight into the local star formation rate, analyzing the
observations of the Hipparcos satellite through a comparison with synthetic
CMDs computed for different histories with an updated stellar evolution
library. Parallax and photometric uncertainties are included explicitly and
corrected using the Bayesian Richardson-Lucy algorithm. We first describe our
verification studies using artificial data sets. From this sensitivity study,
the critical factors determining the success of a recovery for a known star
formation rate are a partial knowledge of the IMF and the age-metallicity
relation, and sample contamination by clusters and moving groups (special
populations whose histories are different than that of the whole sample).
Unresolved binaries are less important impediments. We highlight how these
limit the method. For the real field sample, complete to Mv < 3.5, we find that
the solar neighborhood star formation rate has a characteristic timescale for
variation of about 6 Gyr, with a maximum activity close to 3 Gyr ago. The
similarity of this finding with column integrated star formation rates may
indicate a global origin, possibly a collision with a satellite galaxy. We also
discuss applications of this technique to general photometric surveys of other
complex systems (e.g. Local Group dwarf galaxies) where the distances are well
known.

26
The categories of this paper are: bayes-an
17
The categories of this paper are: q-fin
0
The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
18
The categories of this paper are: econ
31
The categories of this paper are: ao-sci
33
The categories of this paper are: plasm-ph
4
The categories of this paper are: cond-mat
8
The categories of this paper are: hep-ex
34
The categories of this paper are: chem-ph
14
The categories of this paper are: math-ph
12
The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
1
The categories of this paper are: cs
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The categories of this paper are: solv-int
16
The categories of this paper are: stat
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The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
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The categories of this paper are: alg-geom