We present a near infrared study of the spectral components of the continuum in the inner 500 \times 500 pc ^ { 2 } of the nearby Seyfert galaxy Mrk 573 using adaptive optics near-infrared integral field spectroscopy with the instrument NIFS of the Gemini North Telescope at a spatial resolution of \sim 50 pc .
We performed spectral synthesis using the starlight code and constructed maps for the contributions of different age components of the stellar population : young ( age \leq 100 Myr ) , young-intermediate ( 100 < age \leq 700 Myr ) , intermediate-old ( 700 Myr < age \leq 2 Gyr ) and old ( age > 2 Gyr ) to the near-IR K-band continuum , as well as their contribution to the total stellar mass .
We found that the old stellar population is dominant within the inner 250 pc , while the intermediate age components dominate the continuum at larger distances .
A young stellar component contributes up to \sim 20 % within the inner \sim 70 pc , while hot dust emission and featureless continuum components are also necessary to fit the nuclear spectrum , contributing up to 20 % of the K-band flux there .
The radial distribution of the different age components in the inner kiloparsec of Mrk 573 is similar to those obtained by our group for the Seyfert galaxies Mrk 1066 , Mrk 1157 and NGC 1068 in previous works using a similar methodology .
Young stellar populations ( \leq 100 Myr ) are seen in the inner 200–300 pc for all galaxies contributing with \geq 20 % of the K-band flux , while the near-IR continuum is dominated by the contribution of intermediate-age stars ( t = 100 Myr–2Gyr ) at larger distances .
Older stellar populations dominate in the inner 250 pc .

Keywords : galaxies : individual ( Mrk 573 ) – galaxies : Seyfert – infrared : galaxies – galaxies : stellar population