Related papers: The self-enrichment scenario in intermediate metal…
Galactic globular clusters (GCs) are known to host multiple stellar populations: a first generation with a chemical pattern typical of halo field stars and a second generation (SG) enriched in Na and Al and depleted in O and Mg. Both…
Stars formed in galaxy cluster potential wells must be responsible for the high level of enrichment measured in the intracluster medium (ICM); however, there is increasing tension between this truism and the parsimonious assumption that the…
The integrated luminosity of the TP-AGB phase is a major uncertainty in stellar population synthesis models. We use the white dwarf initial final mass relation and stellar interiors models to demonstrate that a significant fraction of the…
All globular clusters (GCs) studied to date show evidence for internal variation in their light element abundances. These variations have been interpreted as evidence for multiple star formation episodes within GCs, with secondary episodes…
We discuss the existence of a mass-metallicity relation among galactic halo globular clusters. The lack of any luminosity-metallicity correlation in globular cluster systems has been used as an argument against self-enrichment models of…
We compare [alpha/Fe], metallicity, and age distributions of globular clusters in elliptical, lenticular, and spiral galaxies, which we derive from Lick line index measurements. We find a large number of globular clusters in elliptical…
Based on a model of globular cluster self-enrichment published in a previous paper, we present an explanation for the metallicity gradient observed throughout the galactic Old Halo. Our self-enrichment model is based on the ability of…
Self-enrichment processes occurring in the early stages of a globular cluster lifetime are generally invoked to explain the observed CNONaMgAl abundance anticorrelations within individual Galactic globulars.We have tested, with fully…
Abundance anomalies observed in globular cluster stars indicate pollution with material processed by hydrogen burning. Two main sources have been suggested: asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and massive stars rotating near the break-up…
The stars in globular clusters are known to differ in their surface chemistry: the spectroscopic investigations in the last decades outlined the presence of star-to-star differences in the abundances of the light elements, up to aluminium…
The aim of this work is to use full evolutionary models to derive observational constraints on the mass loss rate of the upper Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. The observations used to constrain the models are the relative number of…
The formation of stars with light-element abundance variations in globular clusters and the subsequent dynamical evolution of these multiple populations remains an open question. One of the most widely discussed is the AGB scenario, in…
An analysis of high-resolution near-infrared spectra of a sample of 45 asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars towards the Galactic bulge is presented. The sample consists of two subsamples, a larger one in the inner and intermediate bulge, and…
Many scenarios for the origin of the chemical anomalies observed in globular clusters (GCs; i.e., multiple populations) require that GCs were much more massive at birth, up to $10-100\times$, than they are presently. This is invoked in…
We investigate the metal enrichment of elliptical galaxies in the framework of hierarchical models of galaxy formation. The semi-analytical model we use in this Letter, which has been used to study the metal enrichment of the intracluster…
The enrichment of the Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) with heavy elements is reviewed. There is now good observational evidence for enrichment including abundance ratios and metallicity distributions. Various processes involved in the enrichment…
Globular cluster stars show chemical abundance patterns typical of hot-CNO processing. Lithium is easily destroyed by proton capture in stellar environments, so its abundance may be crucial to discriminate among different models proposed to…
Recent observations of globular clusters (GCs) suggest that elemental abundance variations may exist between first-generation (1G) stars. We propose that metal abundance ('metallicity') spreads within GC forming giant molecular clouds…
We investigate aluminum abundance variations in the stellar populations of globular clusters using both literature measurements of sodium and aluminum and APOGEE measurements of nitrogen and aluminum abundances. For the latter, we show that…
Evidence supporting the hypothesis of an invariant stellar Initial Mass Function is strong and varied. The intra-cluster medium in rich clusters of galaxies is one of the few contrary locations where recent interpretations of the chemical…