Theory of Stellar Population Synthesis with an application to N-Body
  simulations
  Aims. We present here a new theoretical approach to population synthesis. The
aim is to predict colour magnitude diagrams (CMDs) for huge numbers of stars.
With this method we generate synthetic CMDs for N-body simulations of galaxies.
Sophisticated hydrodynamic N-body models of galaxies require equal quality
simulations of the photometric properties of their stellar content. The only
prerequisite for the method to work is very little information on the star
formation and chemical enrichment histories, i.e. the age and metallicity of
all star-particles as a function of time. The method takes into account the gap
between the mass of real stars and that of the star-particles in N-body
simulations, which best correspond to the mass of star clusters with different
age and metallicity, i.e. a manifold of single stellar sopulations (SSP).
Methods. The theory extends the concept of SSP to include the phase-space
(position and velocity) of each star. Furthermore, it accelerates the building
up of simulated CMD by using a database of theoretical SSPs that extends to all
ages and metallicities of interest. Finally, it uses the concept of
distribution functions to build up the CMD. The technique is independent of the
mass resolution and the way the N-body simulation has been calculated. This
allows us to generate CMDs for simulated stellar systems of any kind: from open
clusters to globular clusters, dwarf galaxies, or spiral and elliptical
galaxies. Results. The new theory is applied to an N-body simulation of a disc
galaxy to test its performance and highlight its flexibility.
