THE EFFECTS OF HORIZONTAL-BRANCH STARS ON THE H$\beta$ INDEX OF SIMPLE STELLAR POPULATION MODELS

We present the systematic variations of H$\beta$ index of simple stellar populations due to horizontal-branch (HB) stars. Most of the previous works have been done without careful considerations of HB stars. Since the Balmer line strengths are very sensitive to the temperature, including the HB stars are quite important. We found that the strength of H,6 index is strongly affected by HB stars, and hence the age estimation without careful consideration of the variation of HB morphology with metallicity and age would underestimate the ages of ellipticals.