Related papers: Light-element abundance variations in globular clu…
We demonstrate that among the potential sources of the primordial abundance variations of the proton-capture elements in globular-cluster stars proposed so far, such as the hot-bottom burning in massive AGB stars and H burning in the…
An increasing number of both photometric and spectroscopic observations over the last years have shown the existence of distinct sub-populations in many Galactic globular clusters and shattered the paradigm of globulars hosting single,…
Globular clusters (GCs), once thought to be well approximated as simple stellar populations (i.e. all stars having the same age and chemical abundance), are now known to host a variety of anomalies, such as multiple discrete (or spreads in)…
Hydrogen-burning is the root cause of the star-to-star abundance variations of light nuclei in Galactic globular clusters (GC). In the present work we constrain the physical conditions that gave rise to the observed abundance patterns of…
Abundance ratios of carbon, nitrogen and strontium relative to iron, calculated using spectrum synthesis techniques, are given for a sample of main sequence and turnoff stars that belong to the globular cluster omega Centauri. The…
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 majority of Galactic globular clusters (GCs) contain multiple stellar populations displaying specific chemical abundance variations. In particular, GCs generally contain a `primordial' population with abundances similar to field stars,…
Atomic diffusion in stars can create systematic trends of surface abundances with evolutionary stage. Globular clusters offer useful laboratories to put observational constraints on this theory as one needs to compare abundances in…
The majority of observed mass-to-light ratios of globular clusters are too low to be explained by `canonical' cluster models, in which dynamical effects are not accounted for. Moreover, these models do not reproduce a recently reported…
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…
Due to their production sites, as well as to how they are processed and destroyed in stars, the light elements are excellent tools to investigate a number of crucial issues in modern astrophysics: from stellar structure and non-standard…
Globular cluster systems exhibit a bewildering variety of characteristics. No single scenario appears to be able to account for the wide range of specific globular cluster frequencies that are observed in galaxies of various types. The…
We investigate the long-term dynamical evolution of two distinct stellar populations of low-mass stars in globular clusters in order to study whether the energy equipartition process can explain the high number of stars harbouring abundance…
Detailed chemical abundances for five stars in two Galactic globular clusters, NGC 5466 and NGC 5024, are presented from high resolution optical (from the Hobby- Eberley Telescope) and infrared spectra (from the SDSS-III APOGEE survey). We…
Variations in the number of globular clusters per unit galaxy luminosity, which is the specific frequency, and the mass of globular clusters per unit total available mass, are reviewed. Correlations with galaxy luminosity and morphology,…
Thanks to their usefulness in various fields of astrophysics (e.g. mixing processes in stars, chemical evolution of galaxies), the last few years have witnessed a large increase in the amount of abundance data for early-type stars. Two…
We use abundances of Ca, O, Na, Al from high resolution UVES spectra of 200 red giants in 17 globular clusters (GCs) to investigate the correlation found by Lee et al. (2009) between chemical enrichment from SN II and star-to-star…
A new scenario --early disc accretion-- has been recently proposed to explain the discovery of multiple stellar populations in Galactic globular clusters. According to this model, the existence of well defined (anti)-correlations amongst…
Recent JWST observations have revealed a growing population of galaxies at $z>4$ with elevated nitrogen-to-oxygen ratios. These "N/O-enhanced" galaxies (NOEGs) exhibit near- to super-solar N/O at sub-solar O/H, clearly deviating from the…
Halo globular clusters pose four succinct issues that must be solved in any scenario of their formation: single-age, single metallicity stellar populations; a lower limit ([Fe/H] ~ -2.3) to their average metallicity; comprising only 1% of…