A Tale of Two Tails: Exploring Stellar Populations in the Tidal Tails of
  NGC 3256
  We have developed an observing program using deep, multiband imaging to probe
the chaotic regions of tidal tails in search of an underlying stellar
population, using NGC 3256's 400 Myr twin tidal tails as a case study. These
tails have different colours of $u - g = 1.05 \pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.13 \pm
0.07$ for NGC 3256W, and $u - g = 1.26 \pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.26 \pm 0.07$
for NGC 3256E, indicating different stellar populations. These colours
correspond to simple stellar population ages of $288^{+11}_{-54}$ Myr and
$841^{+125}_{-157}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E, respectively, suggesting
NGC 3256W's diffuse light is dominated by stars formed after the interaction,
while light in NGC 3256E is primarily from stars that originated in the host
galaxy. Using a mixed stellar population model, we break our diffuse light into
two populations: one at 10 Gyr, representing stars pulled from the host
galaxies, and a younger component, whose age is determined by fitting the model
to the data. We find similar ages for the young populations of both tails,
($195^{-13}_{+0}$ and $170^{-70}_{+44}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E,
respectively), but a larger percentage of mass in the 10 Gyr population for NGC
3256E ($98^{+1}_{-3}\%$ vs $90^{+5}_{-6}\%$). Additionally, we detect 31 star
cluster candidates in NGC 3256W and 19 in NGC 2356E, with median ages of 141
Myr and 91 Myr, respectively. NGC 3256E contains several young (< 10 Myr), low
mass objects with strong nebular emission, indicating a small, recent burst of
star formation.
