We present the study of stellar populations in the central 5.5′ ( \sim 1.2 kpc ) of the M31 bulge by using the optical color magnitude diagram derived from HST ACS WFC/HRC observations .
In order to enhance image quality and then obtain deeper photometry , we construct Nyquist-sampled images and use a deconvolution method to detect sources and measure their photometry .
We demonstrate that our method performs better than DOLPHOT in the extremely crowded region .
The resolved stars in the M31 bulge have been divided into nine annuli and the color magnitude diagram fitting is performed for each of them .
We confirm that the majority of stars ( > 70 % ) in the M31 bulge are indeed very old ( > 5 Gyr ) and metal-rich ( [ Fe/H ] \sim 0.3 ) .
At later times , the star formation rate decreased and then experienced a significant rise around 1 Gyr ago , which pervaded the entire M31 bulge .
After that , stars formed at less than 500 Myr ago in the central 130″ .
Through simulation , we find that these intermediate-age stars can not be the artifacts introduced by the blending effect .
Our results suggest that although the majority of the M31 bulge are very old , the secular evolutionary process still continuously builds up the M31 bulge slowly .
We compare our star formation history with an older analysis derived from the spectral energy distribution fitting , which suggests that the latter one is still a reasonable tool for the study of stellar populations in remote galaxies .
Keywords : galaxies : bulges < Galaxies , galaxies : evolution < Galaxies , galaxies : individual ( M31 ) < Galaxies