We use the Geneva syclist isochrone models that include the effects of stellar rotation to investigate the role that rotation has on the resulting colour–magnitude diagram of young and intermediate ...age clusters. We find that if a distribution of rotation velocities exists within the clusters, rotating stars will remain on the main sequence for longer, appearing to be younger than non-rotating stars within the same cluster. This results in an extended main sequence turn-off (eMSTO) that appears at young ages (∼30 Myr) and lasts beyond 1 Gyr. If this eMSTO is interpreted as an age spread, the resulting age spread is proportional to the age of the cluster, i.e. young clusters (<100 Myr) appear to have small age spreads (tens of Myr) whereas older clusters (∼1 Gyr) appear to have much large spreads, up to a few hundred Myr. We compare the predicted spreads for a sample of rotation rates to observations of young and intermediate age clusters, and find a strong correlation between the measured ‘age spread’ and the age of the cluster, in good agreement with models of stellar rotation. This suggests that the ‘age spreads’ reported in the literature may simply be the result of a distribution of stellar rotation velocities within clusters.
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 as young as 6 Gyr. Our results are in agreement with a recent spectroscopic study of Lindsay 1. We found that the fraction of enriched stars in NGC 416 is ~45 per cent whereas it is ~25 per cent in NGC 339 and ~36 per cent in Lindsay 1. Similar to NGC 121, these fractions are lower than the average value for globular clusters in the Milky Way.
ABSTRACT
In our HST photometric survey, we have been searching for multiple stellar populations (MPs) in Magellanic Clouds (MCs) massive star clusters which span a significant range of ages ...(∼1.5–11 Gyr). In the previous papers of the series, we have shown that the age of the cluster represents one of the key factors in shaping the origin of the chemical anomalies. Here, we present the analysis of four additional clusters in the MCs, namely Lindsay 38, Lindsay 113, NGC 2121, and NGC 2155, for which we recently obtained new UV HST observations. These clusters are more massive than ∼104 M⊙ and have ages between ∼2.5 and ∼6 Gyr, i.e. located in a previously unexplored region of the cluster age/mass diagram. We found chemical anomalies, in the form of N spreads, in three out of four clusters in the sample, namely in NGC 2121, NGC 2155, and Lindsay 113. By combining data from our survey and HST photometry for three additional clusters in the Milky Way (namely 47 Tuc, M15, and NGC 2419), we show that the extent of the MPs in the form of N spread is a strong function of age, with older clusters having larger N spreads with respect to the younger ones. Hence, we confirm that cluster age plays a significant role in the onset of MPs.
Abstract
We have recently shown that the ∼2 Gyr old Large Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC 1978 hosts multiple populations in terms of star-to-star abundance variations in N/Fe. These can be seen as ...a splitting or spread in the subgiant and red giant branches (SGB and RGB) when certain photometric filter combinations are used. Because of its relative youth, NGC 1978 can be used to place stringent limits on whether multiple bursts of star formation have taken place within the cluster, as predicted by some models for the origin of multiple populations. We carry out two distinct analyses to test whether multiple star formation epochs have occurred within NGC 1978. First, we use ultraviolet colour--magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to select stars from the first and second population along the SGB, and then compare their positions in optical CMDs, where the morphology is dominantly controlled by age as opposed to multiple population effects. We find that the two populations are indistinguishable, with age differences of 1 ± 20 Myr between them. This is in tension with predictions from the asymptotic giant branch scenario for the origin of multiple populations. Second, we estimate the broadness of the main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) of NGC 1978 and we report that it is consistent with the observational errors. We find an upper limit of ∼65 Myr on the age spread in the MSTO of NGC 1978. This finding is in conflict with the age spread scenario as origin of the extended MSTO in intermediate-age clusters, while it fully supports predictions from the stellar rotation model.
A recent surprise in stellar cluster research, made possible through the precision of Hubble Space Telescope photometry, was that some intermediate-age (1–2 Gyr) clusters in the Large and Small ...Magellanic Clouds have main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) widths that are significantly broader than would be expected for a simple stellar population (SSP). One interpretation of these extended MSTOs (eMSTOs) is that age spreads of the order of ∼500 Myr exist within the clusters, radically redefining our view of stellar clusters, which are traditionally thought of as single-age, single-metallicity stellar populations. Here we test this interpretation by studying other regions of the CMD that should also be affected by such large age spreads, namely the width of the sub-giant branch (SGB) and the red clump (RC). We study two massive clusters in the LMC that display the eMSTO phenomenon (NGC 1806 and NGC 1846) and show that both have SGB and RC morphologies that are in conflict with expectations if large age spreads exist within the clusters. We conclude that the SGB and RC widths are inconsistent with extended star formation histories within these clusters, hence age spreads are not likely to be the cause of the eMSTO phenomenon. Our results are in agreement with recent studies that also have cast doubt on whether large age spreads can exist in massive clusters; namely the failure to find age spreads in young massive clusters, a lack of gas/dust detected within massive clusters, and homogeneous abundances within clusters that exhibit the eMSTO phenomenon.
Recent discoveries have put the picture of stellar clusters being simple stellar populations into question. In particular, the color–magnitude diagrams of intermediate age (1–2 Gyr) massive clusters ...in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) show features that could be interpreted as age spreads of 100–500 Myr. If multiple generations of stars are present in these clusters then, as a consequence, young (<1 Gyr) clusters with similar properties should have age spreads of the same order. In this paper we use archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data of eight young massive LMC clusters (NGC 1831, NGC 1847, NGC 1850, NGC 2004, NGC 2100, NGC 2136, NGC 2157 and NGC 2249) to test this hypothesis. We analyzed the color–magnitude diagrams of these clusters and fitted their star formation history to derive upper limits of potential age spreads. We find that none of the clusters analyzed in this work shows evidence for an extended star formation history that would be consistent with the age spreads proposed for intermediate age LMC clusters. Tests with artificial single age clusters show that the fitted age dispersion of the youngest clusters is consistent with spreads that are purely induced by photometric errors. As an additional result we determined a new age of NGC 1850 of ~100 Myr, significantly higher than the commonly used value of about 30 Myr, although consistent with early HST estimates.
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 multiband photometric observations of NGC 121 in different filters taken with the WFC3/UVIS and ACS/WFC instruments. We analyse 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 sub( F336W,F438W,F343N) = (F336W - F438W) - (F438W - F343N) to separate populations with different C and N abundances. We show that the red giant branch splits up in two distinct populations when using this colour combination. NGC 121 thus appears to be similar to Galactic globular clusters in hosting multiple populations. The fraction of enriched stars (N rich, C poor) in NGC 121 is about 32 per cent plus or minus 3 per cent, which is lower than the median fraction found in Milky Way globular clusters. The enriched population seems to be more centrally concentrated compared to the primordial one. These results are consistent with the recent results by Dalessandro et al. The morphology of the horizontal branch in a CMD using the optical filters F555W and F814W is best produced by a population with a spread in helium of ...Y = 0.025 plus or minus 0.005. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
It is now well established that globular clusters (GCs) exhibit star-to-star light-element abundance variations (known as multiple populations, MPs). Such chemical anomalies have been found in ...(nearly) all the ancient GCs (more than 10 Gyr old) of our Galaxy and its close companions, but so far no model for the origin of MPs is able to reproduce all the relevant observations. To gain new insights into this phenomenon, we have undertaken a photometric Hubble Space Telescope survey to study clusters with masses comparable to that of old GCs, where MPs have been identified, but with significantly younger ages. Nine clusters in the Magellanic Clouds with ages between similar to 1.5 and 11 Gyr have been targeted in this survey. We confirm the presence of MPs in all clusters older than 6 Gyr and we add NGC 1978 to the group of clusters for which MPs have been identified. With an age of similar to 2 Gyr, NGC 1978 is the youngest cluster known to host chemical abundance spreads found to date. We do not detect evident star-to-star variations for slightly younger massive clusters (similar to 1.7 Gyr), thus pointing towards an unexpected age dependence for the onset of MPs. This discovery suggests that the formation of MPs is not restricted to the early Universe and that GCs and young massive clusters share common formation and evolutionary processes.
Recent photometric analyses of the colour-magnitude diagrams of young massive clusters (YMCs) have found evidence for splitting in the main sequence and extended main-sequence turn-offs, both of ...which have been suggested to be caused by stellar rotation. Comparison of the observed main-sequence splitting with models has led various authors to suggest a rather extreme stellar rotation distribution, with a minority (10-30 per cent) of stars with low rotational velocities and the remainder (70-90 per cent) of stars rotating near the critical rotation (i.e. near break-up). We test this hypothesis by searching for Be stars within two YMCs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (NGC 1850 and NGC 1856), which are thought to be critically rotating stars with decretion discs that are (partially) ionized by their host stars. In both clusters, we detect large populations of Be stars at the main-sequence turn-off (~30-60 per cent of stars), which supports previous suggestions of large populations of rapidly rotating stars within massive clusters.
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