We present population synthesis models for the calcium II triplet (CaT), currently the most popular metallicity indicator, based on high-resolution empirical spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Our new CaT models, based on empirical SEDs, show a linear correlation below [Fe/H] ~ -0.5, but the linear relation breaks down in the metal-rich regime by converging to the same equivalent width. This relation shows good agreement with the observed CaT of globular clusters (GCs) in NGC 1407 and the Milky Way. However, a model based on theoretical SEDs does not show this feature of the CaT and fails to reproduce observed GCs in the metal-rich regime. This linear relation may cause inaccurate metallicity determination for metal-rich stellar populations. We have also conrmed that the effect of horizontal- branch stars on the CaT is almost negligible in models based on both empirical and theoretical SEDs. Our new empirical model may explain the difference between the color distributions and CaT distributions of GCs in various early-type galaxies. Based on our model, we claim that the CaT is not a good metallicity indicator for simple stellar populations in the metal-rich regime.

In type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) cosmology, a well-established correlation exists between the mass of host galaxies and the Hubble residual (HR) of SNe Ia. In order to investigate the origin of this correlation, we used low-resolution spectroscopic data of early-type host galaxies obtained from our YOnsei Nearby Supernovae Evolution Investigation (YONSEI) project. We measured velocity dispersions and Lick/IDS absorption line indices from these fully calibrated spectra. These indices were used to estimate the luminosity-weighted mean age, metallicity and mass of host galaxies. We found a tight correlation between host mass and population age, which is consistent with the "downsizing" trend in early-type galaxies. This suggests that the well-established correlation between HR and host mass is most likely due to the difference in population age. More observations, which are in progress, are required to understand the impact of luminosity evolution on SNe Ia cosmology.

We use light-curve fitting models (MLCS2k2, SALT2, and SNooPy) as implemented in SNANA to make the YOnsei Nearby Supernova Evolution Investigation (YONSEI) Supernova Catalogue. The catalogue consists of several hundred Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in the redshift range from 0.01 to 1.35, and provides distance moduli, light-curve shape parameters, and color or extinction values for each supernova. This data set will be used to study the dependence of SNe Ia luminosities on the host galaxy morphologies. In this paper, we present the YONSEI Supernova Catalogue and preliminary systematic tests for the catalogue.