Bibcode
Mészáros, Sz.; Martell, Sarah L.; Shetrone, Matthew; Lucatello, Sara; Troup, Nicholas W.; Bovy, Jo; Cunha, Katia; García-Hernández, D. A.; Overbeek, Jamie C.; Allende Prieto, C.; Beers, Timothy C.; Frinchaboy, Peter M.; García Pérez, A. E.; Hearty, Fred R.; Holtzman, Jon; Majewski, Steven R.; Nidever, David L.; Schiavon, Ricardo P.; Schneider, Donald P.; Sobeck, Jennifer S.; Smith, Verne V.; Zamora, O.; Zasowski, Gail
Bibliographical reference
The Astronomical Journal, Volume 149, Issue 5, article id. 153, 24 pp. (2015).
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5
2015
Citations
145
Refereed citations
130
Description
We investigate the light-element behavior of red giant stars in northern
globular clusters (GCs) observed by the SDSS-III Apache Point
Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment. We derive abundances of 9
elements (Fe, C, N, O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ti) for 428 red giant stars
in 10 GCs. The intrinsic abundance range relative to measurement errors
is examined, and the well-known C–N and Mg–Al
anticorrelations are explored using an extreme-deconvolution code for
the first time in a consistent way. We find that Mg and Al drive the
population membership in most clusters, except in M107 and M71, the two
most metal-rich clusters in our study, where the grouping is most
sensitive to N. We also find a diversity in the abundance distributions,
with some clusters exhibiting clear abundance bimodalities (for example
M3 and M53) while others show extended distributions. The spread of Al
abundances increases significantly as cluster average metallicity
decreases as previously found by other works, which we take as evidence
that low metallicity, intermediate mass AGB polluters were more common
in the more metal-poor clusters. The statistically significant
correlation of [Al/Fe] with [Si/Fe] in M15 suggests that 28Si
leakage has occurred in this cluster. We also present C, N, and O
abundances for stars cooler than 4500 K and examine the behavior of
A(C+N+O) in each cluster as a function of temperature and [Al/Fe]. The
scatter of A(C+N+O) is close to its estimated uncertainty in all
clusters and independent of stellar temperature. A(C+N+O) exhibits small
correlations and anticorrelations with [Al/Fe] in M3 and M13, but we
cannot be certain about these relations given the size of our abundance
uncertainties. Star-to-star variations of α-element (Si, Ca, Ti)
abundances are comparable to our estimated errors in all clusters.
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