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Register a new userThe Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters - XV. The dynamical clock: reading cluster dynamical evolution from the segregation level of blue straggler stars
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The parameter A+, defined as the area enclosed between the cumulative radial distribution of blue straggler stars (BSSs) and that of a reference population, is a powerful indicator of the level of BSS central segregation. As part of the Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic globular clusters (GCs), here we present the BSS population and the determination of A+ in 27 GCs observed out to about one half-mass radius. In combination with 21 additional clusters discussed in a previous paper this provides us with a global sample of 48 systems (corresponding to sim 32% of the Milky Way GC population), for which we find a strong correlation between A+ and the ratio of cluster age to the current central relaxation time. Tight relations have been found also with the core radius and the central luminosity density, which are expected to change with the long-term cluster dynamical evolution. An interesting relation is emerging between A+ and the ratio of the BSS velocity dispersion relative to that of main sequence turn-off stars, which measures the degree of energy equipartition experienced by BSSs in the cluster. These results provide further confirmation that BSSs are invaluable probes of GC internal dynamics and A+ is a powerful dynamical clock.
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We discuss the observational properties of a special class of objects (the so-called Blue Straggler Stars, BSSs) in the framework of using this stellar population as probe of the dynamical processes occurring in high-density stellar systems. Indeed, the shape of the BSS radial distribution and their level of central concentration are powerful tracers of the stage of dynamical evolution reached by the host cluster since formation. Hence, they can be used as empirical chronometers able to measure the dynamical age of stellar systems. In addition, the presence of a double BSS sequence in the color-magnitude diagram is likely the signature of the most extreme dynamical process occurring in globular cluster life: the core collapse event. Such a feature can therefore be used to reveal the occurrence of this process and, for the first time, even date it.
We build on the evidence provided by our Legacy Survey of Galactic globular clusters (GC) to submit to a crucial test four scenarios currently entertained for the formation of multiple stellar generations in GCs. The observational constraints on multiple generations to be fulfilled are manifold, including GC specificity, ubiquity, variety, predominance, discreteness, supernova avoidance, p-capture processing, helium enrichment and mass budget. We argue that scenarios appealing to supermassive stars, fast rotating massive stars and massive interactive binaries violate in an irreparable fashion two or more among such constraints. Also the scenario appealing to AGB stars as producers of the material for next generation stars encounters severe difficulties, specifically concerning the mass budget problem and the detailed chemical composition of second generation stars. We qualitatively explore ways possibly allowing one to save the AGB scenario, specifically appealing to a possible revision of the cross section of a critical reaction rate destroying sodium, or alternatively by a more extensive exploration of the vast parameter space controlling the evolutionary behavior of AGB stellar models. Still, we cannot ensure success for these efforts and totally new scenarios may have to be invented to understand how GCs formed in the early Universe.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters (GO-13297) has been specifically designed to complement the existing F606W and F814W observations of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Globular Cluster Survey (GO-10775) by observing the most accessible 47 of the previous surveys 65 clusters in three WFC3/UVIS filters F275W, F336W, and F438W. The new survey also adds super-solar metallicity open cluster NGC 6791 to increase the metallicity diversity. The combined survey provides a homogeneous 5-band data set that can be used to pursue a broad range of scientific investigations. In particular, the chosen UV filters allow the identification of multiple stellar populations by targeting the regions of the spectrum that are sensitive to abundance variations in C, N, and O. In order to provide the community with uniform preliminary catalogs, we have devised an automated procedure that performs high-quality photometry on the new UV observations (along with similar observations of seven other programs in the archive). This procedure finds and measures the potential sources on each individual exposure using library point-spread functions and cross-correlates these observations with the original ACS-Survey catalog. The catalog of 57 clusters we publish here will be useful to identify stars in the different stellar populations, in particular for spectroscopic follow-up. Eventually, we will construct a more sophisticated catalog and artificial-star tests based on an optimal reduction of the UV survey data, but the catalogs presented here give the community the chance to make early use of this HST Treasury survey.
As part of the Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters, 110 parallel fields were observed with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys, in the outskirts of 48 globular clusters, plus the open cluster NGC 6791. Totalling about $0.3$ square degrees of observed sky, this is the largest homogeneous Hubble Space Telescope photometric survey of Galalctic globular clusters outskirts to date. In particular, two distinct pointings have been obtained for each target on average, all centred at about $6.5$ arcmin from the cluster centre, thus covering a mean area of about $23,{rm arcmin^{2}}$ for each globular cluster. For each field, at least one exposure in both F475W and F814W filters was collected. In this work, we publicly release the astrometric and photometric catalogues and the astrometrised atlases for each of these fields.
In this paper we present the astro-photometric catalogues of 56 globular clusters and one open cluster. Astrometry and photometry are mainly based on images collected within the HST Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters: Shedding UV Light on Their Populations and Formation (GO-13297, PI:~Piotto), and the ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters (GO-10775, PI:~Sarajedini). For each source in the catalogues for which we have reliable proper motion we also publish a membership probability for separation of field and cluster stars. These new catalogues, which we make public in Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, replace previous catalogues by Paper VIII of this series.
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