Bibcode
Bragaglia, A.; Carretta, E.; Gratton, R. G.; Lucatello, S.; Milone, A.; Piotto, G.; D'Orazi, V.; Cassisi, S.; Sneden, C.; Bedin, L. R.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 720, Issue 1, pp. L41-L45 (2010).
Advertised on:
9
2010
Citations
69
Refereed citations
64
Description
We present the first chemical composition study of two unevolved stars
in the globular cluster NGC 2808, obtained with the X-shooter
spectrograph at VLT. NGC 2808 shows three discrete, well-separated main
sequences. The most accepted explanation for this phenomenon is that
their stars have different helium contents. We observed one star on the
bluest main sequence (bMS, claimed to have a high helium content, Y
~0.4) and the other on the reddest main sequence (rMS, consistent with a
canonical helium content, Y = 0.245). We analyzed features of NH, CH,
Na, Mg, Al, and Fe. While Fe, Ca, and other elements have the same
abundances in the two stars, the bMS star shows a huge enhancement of N,
a depletion of C, an enhancement of Na and Al, and a small depletion of
Mg with respect to the rMS star. This is exactly what is expected if
stars on the bMS formed from the ejecta produced by an earlier stellar
generation in the complete CNO and MgAl cycles whose main product is
helium. The elemental abundance pattern differences in these two stars
are consistent with the differences in the helium content suggested by
the color-magnitude diagram positions of the stars.
Based on data collected at the ESO telescopes under GTO program
084.D-0070.