The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. XIX. A Chemical Tagging of the Multiple Stellar Populations Over the Chromosome Maps


Abstract in English

The HST UV Survey of Globular Clusters (GCs) has investigated GCs and their stellar populations. In previous papers of this series we have introduced a pseudo two-color diagram, chromosome map (ChM), that maximises the separation between the multiple populations. We have identified two main classes of GCs: Type I (~83% of the objects) and Type II, both hosting two main groups of stars, referred to in this series as first (1G) and second generation (2G). Type II clusters exhibit two or more parallel sequences of 1G and 2G stars in their ChMs. We exploit elemental abundances from literature to assign the chemical composition to the distinct populations as identified on the ChMs of 29 GCs. We find that stars in different regions of the ChM have different composition: 1G stars share the same light-element content as field stars, while 2G stars are enhanced in N, Na and depleted in O. Stars enhanced in Al and depleted in Mg populate the extreme regions of the ChM. We investigate the color spread among 1G stars observed in many GCs, and find no evidence for variations in light elements, whereas either a 0.1 dex Fe spread or a variation in He remain to be verified. In the attempt of analysing the global properties of the multiple populations, we have constructed a universal ChM, which highlights that, though variegate, the phenomenon has some common pattern. The universal ChM reveals a tight connection with Na, for which we have provided an empirical relation. The additional ChM sequences typical of Type II GCs are enhanced in metallicity and, often, in s elements. Omega Cen can be classified as an extreme Type II GC, with a ChM displaying three main streams, each with its own variations in chemical abundances. One of the most noticeable differences is between the lower and upper streams, with the latter (associated with higher He) having higher Fe and lower Li. We publicly release ChMs.

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