On the origin of Na-O anticorrelation in globular clusters

  • Kim, Jaeyeon (Center for Galaxy Evolution Research & Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University) ;
  • Lee, Young-Wook (Center for Galaxy Evolution Research & Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University)
  • 발행 : 2017.04.10

초록

In order to investigate the origin of multiple stellar populations in the halo and bulge of the Milky Way, we have constructed chemical evolution models for the low-mass proto-Galactic subsystems such as globular clusters (GCs). Unlike previous studies, we assume that supernova blast waves undergo blowout without expelling the pre-enriched gas, while relatively slow winds of massive stars, together with the winds and ejecta from low and intermediate mass asymptotic giant branch stars, are all locally retained in these less massive systems. We first applied these models to investigate the origin of super-helium-rich red clump stars in the metal-rich bulge as recently suggested by Lee et al. (2015). We find that chemical enrichments by the winds of massive stars can naturally reproduce the required helium enhancement (dY/dZ = 6) for the second generation stars. Disruption of these "building blocks" in a hierarchical merging paradigm would have provided helium enhanced stars to the bulge field. Interestingly, we also find that the observed Na-O anticorrelation in metal-poor GCs can be reproduced, when multiple episodes of starbursts are allowed to continue in these subsystems. Specific star formation history with decreasing time intervals between the stellar generations, however, is required to obtain this result, as would be expected from the orbital evolution of these subsystems in a proto-Galaxy. The "mass budget problem" is also much alleviated by our models without ad-hoc assumptions on star formation efficiency and initial mass function.

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