Abstract details

We present a condensed guide to an unparalleled, publicly available, library of high S/N integrated spectra of 40 Galactic globular clusters obtained with the CTIO 4-m telescope. The spectra cover the range 3350-6430 Ang with ~3.1 Ang (FWHM) resolution and integrate the full projected area within a cluster core radius thus sampling the light from stars in all relevant evolutionary stages. The total sample is fairly representative of the entire Galactic globular cluster population spanning a wide range of cluster parameters, such as metallicity, horizontal-branch morphology, Galactic location, Galactocentric distance, and concentration. We discuss applications of this unique data base such as the comparison with similar integrated spectra of unresolved stellar populations in remote systems and the coupling with deep color-magnitude diagrams and reliable metal abundances from the literature to enable the calibration of stellar population synthesis models.