• Title/Summary/Keyword: horizontal-branch stars

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DYNAMICAL SUBSTRUCTURES OF GALACTIC GLOBULAR CLUSTERS III. NGC 7006 (우리은하 구상성단들의 역학적 세부구조 III. NGC 7006)

  • Rhee, Jong-Hwan;Sohn, Young-Jong
    • Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.363-376
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    • 2005
  • To study the effects of giant population on dynamical substructures of the central region of NGC 7006, we examine the radial variations of ellipticity and position angle on By stellar photometry using ellipse fitting technique. Total variations of ellipticity and position angle lie in the range $0.02\~0.06\;and\;-10^{\circ}+90^{\circ}$, respectively, from the center out to three times the half light radius. Our ellipse fitting results, after removing giant populations, show that the apparent central dynamical substructures of NGC 7006 are mainly affected by red giant, horizontal branch stars. On the contrary, the contribution of light from subgiant stars to the inner dynamical substructure seems to be insignificant.

PHOTOMETRY STUDY OF NGC288 ON UVBY BANDPASS

  • CHEN ROSIE CHANG-HUI;Lu PHILLIP K.;TSAY WEAN-SHUN
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.29 no.spc1
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    • pp.135-136
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    • 1996
  • We present a new photometric study of the globular cluster NGC288 in Stromgren u, v, b, y, and H$\beta$ system. This cluster is known to have an intermediate metallicity but its color-magnitude diagram has a pure blue horizontal branch, which is a signature of metal poor stellar population. We compare our dataset with Bergbusch's (1993) in both field size and CMD to see whether different photometry system would determine the same physical parameters of a cluster. Demarque and Yi's isochrones (1996, private communication) were applied to Bergbusch's dataset, and we obtained distance modulus of (m - M) = 14.9 $\pm$ 0.2, color excess of E(B - V) = 0.03, and age of 1.5$\pm$3 Gyr. Vandenberg's (1985) isochrones for Stromgren system were also applied to Bergbusch's and our data. We find that the isochrone fits to different photometric systems give rather in consist ant solutions. The source of this discrepancy may become clear when the Demarque and Yi's isochrones for Johnson system are converted to those of Stromgren system. We note that Kurucz model atmospheres provide a useful ground for this conversion work as well as theoretical study of Stromgren characteristics of globular cluster stars.

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On the interpretation of color bimodality of extra-galactic globular clusters

  • Kim, Hak-Sub;Sohn, SangmoTony;Chung, Chul;Lee, Sang-Yoon;Yoon, Suk-Jin
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.35 no.2
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    • pp.27.1-27.1
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    • 2010
  • Globular cluster (GC) systems in most galaxies, particularly in ellipticals, show bimodal color distributions. Because broadband colors trace metallicity at old ages, this phenomenon has been commonly interpreted as bimodal metallicity distributions, implying the presence of two sub-populations in the globular cluster system within a galaxy. However, a new explanation has recently been proposed, in which the non-linear nature of color-metallicity relations induced by horizontal-branch stars can produce bimodal color distributions even from unimodal metallicity distributions. In this study, we put these two explanations to the test on the origin of color bimodality, using multi-band (U,B,V and I) photometry of globular clusters in NGC 1399, the central giant elliptical galaxy in Fornax galaxy cluster. We find significant changes in the morphology of color distributions when using different colors. The observation is also well reproduced by the Monte Carlo realization of GC color when a unimodal metallicity distribution and the theoretical non-linear color-metallicity relations are assumed. We discuss the implications regarding theories on galaxy formation and evolution.

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THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALACTIC GLOBULAR CLUSTERS.: II. HELIUM ABUNDANCES AND AGES

  • Lee, See-Woo
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.41-69
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    • 1985
  • For the well observed 16 globular clusters with known metal abundance (Z), the helium abundances (Y) and ages are determined by various methods, and the relations between Y, Z and age are examined. The luminosity $L_{RR}$ of RR Lyrae stars is known to be dependent of evolutionary models and pulsation theory in the sense that the pulsation theory and horizontal branch (HB) models yield the anticorrelation between $L_{RR}$ and Z whereas main sequence (MS) and red giant branch (RGB) models yield the direct correlation between them. Similarly the anticorrelation between Y and Z is obtained from the HB models and pulsation theory whereas the direct correlation between them is obtained when the RGB model is applied. The current evolutionary models yield the anticorrelation between Z and age of clusters whenever the direct correlation between Y and Z holds. However when the anticorrelation between Y and Z is applied for age determination, the similar age of clusters is obtained as shown by Sandage (1982b). The ages, which are determined by the fitting of C-M diagrams to isochrones in the ($M_v$, B-V)-plane, suggest the two different chemical enrichment processes, which could be accounted for by the disk-halo model for the chemical evolution of the Galaxy (Lee and Ann 1981). Also it is known that the R-method is very useful for Y-determination and the derived Y's show the increasing rate of $\frac{{\Delta}Y}{{\Delta}Z}{\simeq}0.5$ which is comparable to the observed value of $\frac{{\Delta}Y}{{\Delta}Z}{\simeq}0.3$ from HII regions and planetary nebulae by Peimbert and Torres-Peimbert (1976). In this case, the age-metallicity relation of globular clusters could be explained by the disk-halo model.

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Yonsei Evolutionary Population Synthesis for Old Stellar Systems

  • Chung, Chul
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.37 no.1
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    • pp.31.2-31.2
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    • 2012
  • We present the Yonsei Evolutionary Population Synthesis (YEPS) models for spectroscopic and photometric evolutions of simple and composite stellar populations. The models are based on the most up-to-date Yonsei-Yale stellar evolutionary tracks and BaSel 3.1 flux libraries, and provide integrated spectroscopic quantities of Lick/IDS system including high-order Balmer absorption-lines. Special care has been taken to incorporate the systematic variation of horizontal branch (HB) morphology as functions of metallicity, age, alpha-element mixture, and helium abundance of simple stellar populations. Our models for normal-helium stellar populations indicate that the realistic modeling of HB and alpha-element brings about 5 Gyr and 0.1 dex differences in age and metallicity estimations, respectively, compared to those without these effects. The HB effect does not depend on the specific choice of stellar libraries and alpha-element enhancements, and this effect is non-negligible even in the metal sensitive absorption indices, such as Mg2 and Mg b. Comparison of the models to observations reveals that the HB and alpha-element effects are critical in understanding otherwise inexplicable phenomena found in globular cluster systems in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, including the observed bimodality of the line strengths of globular clusters in massive galaxies. In addition, we found that helium-enhanced stellar populations, which are the major sources of extreme HB stars, bring about increased FUV, NUV fluxes, and thus the model colors of those filters become extremely blue. Age dating based on the YEPS model with normal-helium stellar populations reveals that the evidence for 'downsizing' of elliptical galaxies is found not only in the local field but also in Coma cluster, and that the mean age of elliptical galaxies in Coma cluster is about 1.4 Gyr younger than the mean age of those in the local field. We also find that our models with helium-enhanced subpopulations can naturally reproduce the strong UV-upturns observed in giant elliptical galaxies assuming an age similar to that of old GCs in the Milky Way.

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THEORETICAL STUDY ON OBSERVED COLOR-MAGNITUDE DIAGRAMS

  • Lee, See-Woo
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.12 no.1
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    • pp.41-70
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    • 1979
  • From $B\ddot{o}hm$-Vitense's atmospheric model calculations, the relations, [$T_e$, (B-V)] and [B.C, (B-V)] with respect to heavy element abundance were obtained. Using these relations and evolutionary model calculations of Rood, and Sweigart and Gross, analytic expressions for some physical parameters relating to the C-M diagrams of globular clusters were derived, and they were applied to 21 globular clusters with observed transition periods of RR Lyrae variables. More than 20 different parameters were examined for each globular cluster. The derived ranges of some basic parameters are as follows; $Y=0.21{\sim}0.33,\;Z=1.5{\times}10^{-4}{\sim}4.5{\times}10^{-3},\;age,\;t=9.5{\sim}19{\times}10^9$ years, mass for red giants, $m_{RG}=0.74m_{\odot}{\sim}0.91m_{\odot}$, mass for RR Lyrae stars, $m_{RR}=0.59m_{\odot}{\sim}0.75m_{\odot}$, the visual magnitude difference between the turnoff point and the horizontal branch (HB), ${\Delta}V_{to}=3.1{\sim}3.4(<{\Delta}V_{to}>=3.32)$, the color of the blue edge of RR Lyrae gap, $(B-V)_{BE}=0.17{\sim}0.21=(<(B-V)_{BE}>=0.18),\;[\frac{m}{L}]_{RR}=-1.7{\sim}-1.9$, mass difference of $m_{RR}$ relative to $m_{RG},(m_{RG}-m_{RR})/m_{RG}=0.0{\sim}0.39$. It was found that the ranges of derived parameters agree reasonably well with the observed ones and those estimated by others. Some important results obtained herein can be summarized as follows; (i) There are considerable variations in the initial helium abundance and in age of globular clusters. (ii) The radial gradient of heavy element abundance does exist for globular clusters as shown by Janes for field stars and open clusters. (iii) The helium abundance seems to have been increased with age by massive star evolution after a considerable amount (Y>0.2) of helium had been attained by the Big-Bang nucleosynthesis, but there is not seen a radial gradient of helium abundance. (iv) A considerable amount of heavy elements ($Z{\sim}10{-3}$) might have been formed in the inner halo ($r_{GC}$<10 kpc) from the earliest galactic co1lapse, and then the heavy element abundance has been slowly enriched towards the galactic center and disk, establishing the radial gradient of heavy element abundance. (v) The final galactic disk formation might have taken much longer by about a half of the galactic age than the halo formation, supporting a slow, inhomogeneous co1lapse model of Larson. (vi) Of the three principal parameters controlling the morphology of C-M diagrams, it was found that the first parameter is heavy clement abundance, the second age and the third helium abundance. (vii) The globular clusters can be divided into three different groups, AI, BI and CII according to Z, Y an d age as well as Dickens' HB types. BI group clusters of HB types 4 and 5 like M 3 and NGC 7006 are the oldest and have the lowest helium abundance of the three groups. And also they appear in the inner halo. On the other hand, the youngest AI clusters have the highest Z and Y, and appear in the innermost halo region and in the disk. (viii) From the result of the clean separations of the clusters into three groups, a three dimensional classification with three parameters, Z, Y and age is prsented. (ix) The anomalous C-M diagrams can be expalined in terms of the three principal parameters. That is, the anomaly of NGC 362 and NGC 7006 is accounted for by the smaller age of the order of $1{\sim}2{\times}10^9$ years rather than by the helium abundance difference, compared with M 3. (x) The difference in two Oosterhoff types I and II can be explained in terms of the mean mass difference of RR Lyrae variables rather than in terms of the helium abundance difference as suggested by Stobie. The mean mass of the variables in Oosterhoff type I clusters is smaller by $0.074m_{\odot}$ which is exactly consistent with Rood's estimate. Since it was found that the mean mass of RR Lyrae stars increases with decreasing Z, the two Oosterhoff types can be explained substantially by the metal abundance difference; the type II has Z<$3.4{\times}10^{-4}$, and the type I has higher Z than the type II.

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