{HST Studies of the WLM Galaxy. II. The Star Formation History from Field Stars

HST F555W and F814W photometry of a portion of the WLM galaxy are presented. The distance modulus is determined via fitting of the entire color-magnitude diagram to be (m-M)_0 = 24.88 +/- 0.09, which is consistent with the RGB tip distance. The galaxy's measurable star formation history appears to have begun no more than 12 Gyr ago, with about half of WLM's total star formation (by mass) formed before 9 Gyr ago. The star formation rate gradually decreased, until a recent increase in activity starting between 1 and 2.5 Gyr ago. This is still continuing to the present time, and is concentrated in the bar of the galaxy, as shown by the difference in recent star formation rates in the three WF chips.