Globular Clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud: An Impact from GAIA Photometry

The goal of this work is to assess the expected scientific output from the photometric studies of globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud with ESA's astrometric space mission GAIA. For this purpose we simulate GAIA photometry of individual stars in synthetic cluster populations, covering a large range of cluster ages and metallicities. We find that accurate effective temperatures (Δ T _eff<10%) can be obtained from GAIA photometry down to V ∼ 18 for stars in populations within the studied metallicity range ([M/H] = -0.4 ... -1.7). GAIA will also provide photometric metallicities (Δ [M/H] ≲ 0.3 dex) for the cluster giants brighter than V ∼ 17.5. The knowledge of the effective temperature sand metallicities will allow to obtain accurate ages of stellar populations younger than about 1 Gyr using the usual procedure of main sequence turn-off point fitting. Ages of older stellar populations (≳ 1 Gyr) may be constrained from the isochrone fits to the giant branches in the observed CMDs. We conclude that GAIA will provide excellent opportunities for studying star formation histories far beyond the Milky Way, providing means for better understanding of stellar and galactic evolution in different astrophysical environments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Helium-rich EHB Stars in Globular Clusters

Recent UV observations of the most massive Galactic globular clusters show a significant population of hot stars below the zero-age HB (“blue hook” stars), which cannot be explained by canonical stellar evolution. Stars which suffer unusually large mass loss on the red giant branch and thus experience the helium-core flash while descending the white dwarf cooling curve could populate this region. They should show higher temperatures than the hottest canonical HB stars and their atmospheres should be helium-rich and probably C/N-rich. We have obtained spectra of blue hook stars in ω Cen and NGC 2808 to test this possibility. Our analysis shows that the blue hook stars in these clusters reach effective temperatures well beyond the hot end of the canonical EHB and have higher helium abundances than canonical EHB stars. These results support the hypothesis that the blue hook stars arise from stars which ignite helium on the white dwarf cooling curve.     

Abundances in Globular Clusters

Large inter- and intra-cluster abundance variations of several light elements are observed among Galactic globular cluster stars. Correlations among these abundances suggest that many of the chemical inhomogeneities have been caused by high temperature advanced proton-capture fusion reactions. The evidence for this proton-capture reshuffling is addressed, along with comments on possible sites for this nucleosynthesis. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

球状星团的天体测量(英)

球状星团是银河系中最年老的天体之一，是储存着银河系早期演化珍贵信息的“化石”．球状星团的天体测量，主要包括球状星因天区内恒星相对自行的测定，并由这些相对自行数据采用适当方法定出星团的绝对自行，或者直接测定绝对自行．利用这些自行数据，或者进一步与测光和视向速度数据结合，可以开展与球状星团的距离、运动、动力学状况、质量、年龄、演化等等以及银河系的结构和演化等有关的一系列重要的研究．在本文中对本世纪70年代中期以来在球状星团相对自行测定和成员概率估计、内部运动检测、绝对自行测定和空间运动研究这三方面取得的成果和进展以及存在的问题作了评述．     

To the Globular Cluster Classification Problem. Calculating the Concentration of Stars for 26 Clusters

Astronomy Letters - In view of the absence of a satisfactory solution to the globular cluster (GC) classification problem, we have searched for a physical parameter that admits of the GC...     

Some Magellanic Cloud topics

A review is given of a few of the aspects of Magellanic Cloud research which have been carried out by South African astronomers or by others using South African facilities.     

Radio Emission from Globular Clusters

1 INTRODUCTION Many radio observations have been conducted on globular clusters in the past years, stimu-lated by the detection of pulsars and X-ray sources in them. Globular clusters are good placesfor hunting pulsars (Lyne et al. 2000). Until now, about 50 pulsars have been detected in 17globular clusters (Lyne et al. 1995; Biggs & Lyne 1996; D'Amico et al. 2001; Lyne et al. 2000;Camilo et al. 2000). Except for four long period pulsars, all of these pulsars are millisecondpulsars (M…     

Anomalous giants in Magellanic Cloud clusters

Many of the populous intermediate-age star clusters (theblue globulars) of the Magellanic Clouds have a few stars that occupy a “forbidden zone” in the colour-magnitude diagrams of the clusters, where stellar evolutionary theory does not predict that stars should lie. The properties of these stars in 13 clusters are gathered in Table 1, where it can be seen that the absolute magnitudes of the stars correlate with the cluster age, lying at a mean value of 2.7 mag above the tip of the main sequence. Several hypotheses regarding their nature are discussed, and it is concluded tentatively that they represent an unpredicted advanced stage of evolution from the giant branch, though no theoretical evidence supports such a conclusion. Considerably more observational data are needed before a more positive statement can be made. Visiting Astronomer, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, which is supported by the National Science Foundation under contract No. AST 78-27879.     

Abundances in Magellanic Clouds Young Clusters:

Detailed abundances are measured in cool (K type) supergiants in LMC young populous clusters (NGC 2004, NGC 2100 and NGC 1818), and compared to those, recently observed in samples of field supergiants in both Magellanic Clouds. This completes the work already done onthe SMC cluster NGC 330 (Hill et al., 1997b).The analysis of the field supergiants showed no evidence of any abundance dispersion among the stars, compatible with a well mixed gas in thesegalaxies. However, previous determinations of the metallicity ofNGC 330 and NGC 1818 gave values well below the respective field values. This difference is seeked, using a homogeneous method for the field andcluster samples, and the abundance ratios of various elements are examined. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Regular and Chaotic Motion in Globular Clusters

As a first step towards a comprehensive investigation of stellar motions within globular clusters, we present here the results of a study of stellar orbits in a mildly triaxial globular cluster that follows a circular orbit inside a galaxy. The stellar orbits were classified using the frequency analysis code of Carpintero and Aguilar and, as a check, the Liapunov characteristic exponents were also computed in some cases. The orbit families were obtained using different start spaces. Chaotic orbits turn out to be very common and while, as could be expected, they are particularly abundant in the outer parts of the cluster, they are still significant in the innermost regions. Their relevance for the structure of the cluster is discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

New Aspects of Extragalactic Globular Clusters

1　ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＧｌｏｂｕｌａｒｃｌｕｓｔｅｒｓａｒｅｃｏｎｓｉｄｅｒｅｄｔｏｂｅｔｈｅｏｌｄｅｓｔｓｔｅｌｌａｒｓｙｓｔｅｍｓｉｎｇａｌａｘｉｅｓｓｏｔｈａｔｔｈｅｙｋｅｅｐａｆｏｓｓｉｌｒｅｃｏｒｄｏｆｅａｒｌｙｈｉｓｔｏｒｙｏｆｇａｌａｘｉｅｓ .Ｔｈｅｙａｒｅｓｏｂｒｉｇｈｔｔｈａｔｔｈｅｙｃａｎｂｅｏｂｓｅｒｖｅｄｅｖｅｎｉｎｄｉｓ ｔａｎｔｇａｌａｘｉｅｓ,ａｎｄｔｈｅｙａｒｅａｂｕｎｄａｎｔｉｎｇａｌａｘｉｅｓ,ｅｓｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙｉｎｇｉａｎｔｇａｌａｘｉｅｓｗｈｉｃｈｈａ…     

球状星团成员星的空间相关性分析

以球状星团NGC (New General Catalogue) 104、NGC 5139、NGC 6121为实验样区, 选取了视差等10个恒星参数, 通过引入地学中的空间分析理论和相应的分析框架为定量描述球状星团成员星的空间分布特征提出了一种基于地学的研究范式. 通过计算全局和局部莫兰(Moran)指数得到球状星团成员星各恒星参数的空间分布特征. 研究结果表明: 球状星团NGC 104、NGC 5139、NGC 6121成员星的各恒星参数在总体上呈现出空间正相关特性, 表现出空间集聚特征, 但不同恒星参数之间存在差异; 局部空间分布也呈现聚集特征, 而不同的成员星呈现出不同的空间分布特性和趋势. 总体而言, 用地学空间相关分析系统地定量化描述球状星团成员星空间分布特征, 能够为球状星团的研究提供新的思路.     

Abundance Ratios in Extreme Metal-Poor Stars

In extremely metal-poor stars ([Fe/H]≤ − 2.5) the neutron capture elementsare characterized by a 300-fold dispersion in M/Fe ratios which decreases with increasing metallicity, the median M/Fe ratio increases with increasing [Fe/H], but the averageM/Fe number ratio is approximately constant. These observations are consistent witha highly dispersed intrinsic yield of neutron-capture elements in supernova (SN) events,and a progression to increasing metallicity by stochastic chemical evolution.The abundance trends indicate that the synthesis of elements heavier thanbarium was dominated by the r-process. The Sr/Ba ratio shows a dispersionwhich suggests a stochastic source of Sr in excess of the r-process value;possibly due to the alpha-rich freeze out.The iron-peak elements Cr, Mn, and Co show non-solar abundance ratios forextreme metal-poor stars, and no measurableintrinsic dispersion relative to iron. We discuss chemical evolution models which explain these observations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Globular Clusters and field stars in the Bulge

In this paper we discuss the characteristics of the stellar content of the galactic bulge excluding the stars within a few parsec from the galactic center. The bulge clusters and the field stars are comparedto the disk population. A scenario with a flattened bulge extending toabout 3–4 Kpc from the galactic center is presented. There is evidencefor an old bulge stellar population, decoupled from the disk. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.