THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALACTIC GLOBULAR CLUSTERS.: I. METAL ABUNDANCE CALIBRATIONS

  • Lee, See-Woo (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Park, Nam-Kyu (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 1984.12.31

Abstract

Five different calibrations of metal abundances of globular clusters are examined and these are compared with metallicity ranking parameters such as $(Sp)_c$, . Q39 and IR-indices. Except for the calibration $[Fe/H]_H$ by the high dispersion echelle analysis. the other calibration scales are correlated with the morphological parameters of red giant branch. In the $[Fe/H]_H$-scale. the clusters later than ${\sim}F8$ have nearly a constant metal abundance. $[Fe/H]_H{\simeq}-1.05$, regradless of morphological characteristics of horizontal branch and red giant branch. By the two fundamental calibration scales of $[Fe/H]_L$ (derived by the low dispersion analysis) and $[Fe/H]_{{\Delta}s}$ (derived by the spectral analysis of RR Lyrae stars). the globular clusters are divided into the halo clusters with [Fe/H]<-1.0 and the disk clusters confined within the galactocentric distance ${\tau}_G=10\;kpc$ and galactic plane distance |z|=3 kpc. In this case the abundance gradient is given by d[Fe/H]/$dr_G{\approx}-0.05\;kpc^{-1}$ and d[Fe/H]/$d|z|{\simeq}-0.08\;kpc^{-1}$ within ${\tau}_G=20\;kpc$ and |z|=10 kpc, respectively. According to these characteristics of the spatial distribution of globular clusters. the chemical evolution of the galactic globular clusters can be accounted for by the two-zone (disk-halo) slow collapse model when the $[Fe/H]_L$-or $[Fe/H]_{{\Delta}s}$-scale is applied. In the case of $[Fe/H]_H$-scale, the one-zone fast collapse model is preferred for the evolution of globular clusters.

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