This paper presents the chemical abundance analysis of a sample of 18 giant stars in 3 old globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud, namely NGC 1786, NGC 2210 and NGC 2257. The derived iron content is [Fe/H]= --1.75+-0.01 dex (sigma= 0.02 dex), --1.65+-0.02 dex (sigma= 0.04 dex) and --1.95+-0.02 dex (sigma= 0.04 dex) for NGC 1786, NGC 2210 and NGC 2257, respectively. All the clusters exhibit similar abundance ratios, with enhanced values (+0.30 dex) of [alpha/Fe], consistent with the Galactic Halo stars, thus indicating that these clusters have formed from a gas enriched by Type II SNe. We also found evidence that r-process are the main channel of production of the measured neutron capture elements (Y, Ba, La, Nd, Ce and Eu). In particular the quite large enhancement of [Eu/Fe] (+0.70 dex) found in these old clusters clearly indicates a relevant efficiency of the r-process mechanism in the LMC environment.
We used a combination of optical and near-UV Hubble Space Telescope photometry and FLAMES/ESO-VLT high-resolution spectroscopy to characterize the stellar content of the old and massive globular cluster (GC) NGC121 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We report on the detection of multiple stellar populations, the first case in the SMC stellar cluster system. This result enforces the emerging scenario in which the presence of multiple stellar populations is a distinctive-feature of old and massive GCs regardless of the environment, as far as the light element distribution is concerned. We find…
We started a photometric survey using the WFC3/UVIS instrument onboard the Hubble Space Telescope to search for multiple populations within Magellanic Cloud star clusters at various ages. In this paper, we introduce this survey. As first results of this programme, we also present multi-band photometric observations of NGC 121 in different filters taken with the WFC3/UVIS and ACS/WFC instruments. We analyze the colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) of NGC 121, which is the only "classical" globular cluster within the Small Magellanic Cloud. Thereby, we use the pseudo-colour C_(F336W,F438W,F343N)=(F336…
We analyze Hubble Space Telescope observations of six globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud from program GO-14164 in Cycle 23. These are the deepest available observations of the LMC globular cluster population; their uniformity facilitates a precise comparison with globular clusters in the Milky Way. Measuring the magnitude of the main sequence turnoff point relative to template Galactic globular clusters allows the relative ages of the clusters to be determined with a mean precision of 8.4%, and down to 6% for individual objects. We find that the mean age of our LMC cluster ensembl…
We present the first gri-band period-luminosity (PL) and period-Wesenheit (PW) relations for the fundamental mode anomalous Cepheids. These PL and PW relations were derived from a combined sample of five anomalous Cepheids in globular cluster M92 and the Large Magellanic Cloud, both of which have distance accurate to ~1% available from literature. Our g-band PL relation is similar to the B-band PL relation as reported in previous study. We applied our PL and PW relations to anomalous Cepheids discovered in dwarf galaxy Crater II, and found a larger but consistent distance modulus than the rece…
The Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) scenario ascribes the multiple populations in old Galactic Globular Clusters (GGC) to episodes of star formation in the gas contaminated by the ejecta of massive AGBs and super-AGBs of a first stellar population. The mass of these AGBs (4-8Msun) today populate the Young Massive Clusters (YMC) of the Magellanic Clouds, where rapid rotation and its slowing down play an important role in shaping the color magnitude diagram features. Consequently, we must reconsider whether the rotational evolution of these masses affects the yields, and whether the resulting abun…
Detailed chemical abundances of two stars in the intermediate-age Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) globular cluster NGC~1718 are presented, based on high resolution spectroscopic observations with the MIKE spectrograph. The detailed abundances confirm NGC~1718 to be a fairly metal-rich cluster, with an average [Fe/H] ~ -0.55+/-0.01. The two red giants appear to have primordial O, Na, Mg, and Al abundances, with no convincing signs of a composition difference between the two stars---hence, based on these two stars, NGC~1718 shows no evidence for hosting multiple populations. The Mg abundance is low…
The independence of the mid-infrared RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity relation from metallicity from a study of three globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Department of Physics, University of Bath（巴斯大学物理系）
Multiple Populations of the Large Magellanic Cloud Globular Cluster NGC 2257: No Major Environmental Effect on the Formation of Multiple Populations of the Old Globular Clusters in Large Magellanic Cloud
本研究通过 Ca–CN–CH 测光分析年老贫金属 LMC 球状星团 NGC 2257 的多族群，发现其族群比例、金属丰度及元素变化趋势与银河系普通球状星团一致，表明宿主星系环境对多族群形成演化无重大影响。
We present the largest collection of RR Lyrae stars in the Magellanic System and in its foreground. The sample consists of 45 451 RR Lyr stars, of which 39 082 were detected toward the Large Magellanic Cloud and 6369 toward the Small Magellanic Cloud. We provide long-term time-series photometric measurements collected during the fourth phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE-IV). We discuss several potential astrophysical applications of our collection: investigation of the structure of the Magellanic Clouds and the Galactic halo, studies of the globular clusters in the Mag…
I present the latest results from our group about the multiple stellar populations in the old Milky Way globular clusters (GCs) and in the young systems both in the Magellanic Clouds and in the Milky Way. For the ancient GCs in our Galaxy I summarize the chemical properties of the stellar populations as observed on the chromosome map. Both Type I and Type II GCs are discussed. For the youngest clusters I will briefly report our latest spectroscopic analysis on the Large Magellanic Cloud cluster NGC1818 and the Galactic open cluster NGC6705 (M11), which supports the co-existence of stellar popu…
Blue straggler stars have been proposeed as powerful indicators to measure the dynamical state of Galactic globular clusters. Here we examine for the first time if this framework of blue straggler stars as dynamical clocks, which was specifically developed for Galactic globular clusters, may also hold for younger globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Using Hubble Space Telescope observations, we study seven Large Magellanic Cloud star clusters with ages between ~700 Myr and 7 Gyr. We confirm that our sample clusters are consistent with the empirical correlation previously derived fo…
Large Magellanic Cloud Globular Clusters in the Near-infrared. I. RR Lyrae in Reticulum
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)（大学间天文学与天体物理学中心）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte（意大利国家天体物理研究所卡波迪蒙特天文台）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)—Sezione di Napoli（意大利国家核物理研究院那不勒斯分部）；Graduate Institute of Astronomy, National Central University（中央大学天文研究所）
Multiple stellar populations (MPs) representing star-to-star light-element abundance variations are common in nearly all ancient Galactic globular clusters. Here we provide the strongest evidence yet that the populous, ~ 1.7 Gyr-old Large Magellanic Cloud cluster NGC 2173 also exhibits light-element abundance variations. Thus, our results suggest that NGC 2173 is the youngest cluster for which MPs have been confirmed to date. Our conclusion is based on the distinct bifurcation at the tip of its red-giant branch in high-quality color--magnitude diagrams generated from Hubble Space Telescope ima…
The nature of type II Cepheids and anomalous Cepheids is still not well known and their evolutionary channels leave many unanswered questions. We use complete collection of classical pulsating stars in the Magellanic Clouds discovered by the OGLE project, to compare their spatial distributions, which are one of the characteristic features directly related to the star formation history. In this analysis we use 9649 classical Cepheids, 262 anomalous Cepheids, 338 type II Cepheids and 46 443 RR Lyr stars from both Magellanic Clouds. We compute three-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for every …
We leverage new high-quality data from Hubble Space Telescope program GO-14164 to explore the variation in horizontal branch morphology among globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Our new observations lead to photometry with a precision commensurate with that available for the Galactic globular cluster population. Our analysis indicates that, once metallicity is accounted for, clusters in the LMC largely share similar horizontal branch morphologies regardless of their location within the system. Furthermore, the LMC clusters possess, on average, slightly redder morphologies th…
Intermediate-age star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds harbour signatures of the multiple stellar populations long thought to be restricted to old globular clusters. We compare synthetic horizontal branch models with Hubble Space Telescope photometry of clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, with age between ~2 and ~10 Gyr, namely NGC 121, Lindsay 1, NGC 339, NGC 416, Lindsay 38, Lindsay 113, Hodge 6 and NGC 1978. We find a clear signature of initial helium abundance spreads (delta(Y)) in four out of these eight clusters (NGC 121, Lindsay 1, NGC 339, NGC 416) and we quantify the value of delta(Y)…
We explore the possibility of searching for extratidal features around the Galactic globular cluster NGC362 using the Gaia DR2 together with a modified version of a classical statistical decontamination algorithm. Our results suggest that an important stellar component is associated with this globular cluster, which is perfectly distinguishable from the populations in the Small Magellanic Cloud and that of the nearby NGC104 (47 Tucanae). We thus confirm once again the power of Gaia to disentangle different stellar components along the same line-of-sight.
A nova is a cataclysmic event on the surface of a white dwarf in a binary system that increases the overall brightness by several orders of magnitude. Although binary systems with a white dwarf are expected to be overabundant in globular clusters (GCs) compared to the Galaxy, only two novae from Galactic globular clusters have been observed. We present the discovery of an emission nebula in the Galactic globular cluster M 22 (NGC 6656) in observations made with the integral-field spectrograph MUSE. We extract the spectrum of the nebula and use the radial velocity determined from the emission l…
This is the second paper in our series about the search for multiple populations in Magellanic Cloud star clusters using the Hubble Space Telescope. Here we report the detection of multiple stellar populations in the colour-magnitude diagrams of the intermediate-age clusters Lindsay 1, NGC 416 and NGC 339. With ages between 6.0 and 7.5 Gyr, these clusters are the youngest ones in which chemical abundance spreads have been detected so far. This confirms that the appearance of multiple populations is not restricted to only ancient globular clusters, but may also be a common feature in clusters a…
We present ESO/VLT FORS2 low resolution spectroscopy of red giant branch stars in three massive, intermediate age ($\sim 1.7-2.3$ Gyr) star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We measure CH and CN index bands at 4300A, and 3883A, as well as [C/Fe] and [N/Fe] abundance ratios for 24, 21 and 12 member stars of NGC 1978, NGC 1651, NGC 1783, respectively. We find a significant intrinsic spread in CN in NGC 1978 and NGC 1651, a signal of multiple stellar populations (MPs) within the clusters. On the contrary, we report a null CN spread in NGC 1783 within our measurement precision. For NGC 1978,…
We set out to compare the age-metallicity relation (AMR) of massive clusters from Magellanic Cloud mass galaxies in the E-MOSAICS suite of numerical cosmological simulations with an amalgamation of observational data of massive clusters in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC/SMC). We aim to test if: i) star cluster formation proceeds according to universal physical processes, suggestive of a common formation mechanism for young-massive clusters (YMCs), intermediate-age clusters (IACs), and ancient globular clusters (GCs); ii) massive clusters of all ages trace a continuous AMR; iii) the…
Using parallaxes from Gaia DR2, we estimate the distance to the globular clusters 47 Tuc and NGC 362, taking advantage of the background stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud and quasars to account for various parallax systematics. We found the parallax to be dependent on the Gaia DR2 G apparent magnitude for stars with $13<\textrm{G}<18$ , where brighter stars have a lower parallax zero point than fainter stars. The distance to 47 Tuc was found to be $4.45\pm0.01\pm0.12$ kpc, and for NGC 362 $8.54\pm0.20\pm0.44$ kpc with random and systematic errors listed respectively. This is the first time a…
Globular Clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way represent the ideal laboratory to establish the age of the oldest stellar populations and to measure the color-magnitude relation of stars. Infrared (IR) photometry of these objects provides a new opportunity to accomplish this task. In particular, at low stellar masses, the stellar main sequence (MS) in an IR color-magnitude diagram (CMD) exhibits a sharp "kink" (due to opacity effects in M dwarfs), such that lower mass and cooler dwarfs become bluer in the F110W - F160W color baseline and not redder. This inversion of the color-magnitude relation offe…
