Related papers: Helium variations in Galactic and extragalactic Gl…
Context. Globular clusters host stars with chemical peculiarities. The associated helium enrichment is expected to affect the evolution of stars, in general, and of low-mass stars, and in particular the progenitors of white dwarfs (WDs).…
Changes in the law of gravity have far-reaching implications for the formation and evolution of galaxy clusters, and appear as peculiar signatures in their mass-observable relations, structural properties, internal dynamics, and abundance.…
Most old globular clusters (GCs) in the Galaxy are observed to have internal chemical abundance spreads in light elements. We discuss a new GC formation scenario based on hierarchical star formation within fractal molecular clouds. In the…
This paper reviews some recent work on the properties of the outer halos of galaxies. I particularly focus on recent and upcoming advances made with the study of globular clusters. Globular clusters can be observed out to ~100 kpc from the…
New VRI photometry is presented for the globular clusters in the innermost 140'' of the M87 halo. The results are used to discuss several issues concerning the formation and evolution of globular cluster systems in supergiant ellipticals…
In the multiple population framework, a number of studies have been accomplished in order to explore the behaviour of lithium with proton-capture element abundances (e.g., Na, O, Al) in globular cluster stars. Lithium offers perhaps one of…
We explore the possible contribution of classical and recurrent novae from isolated white dwarfs accreting from the intracluster medium to the abundances of "second generation" globular cluster stellar populations. We show that under…
Thanks to the large amount of spectroscopic and photometric data assembled in the last couple of decades, the assumption that all globular clusters (GCs) contain a simple mono-metallic stellar population has been modified. Besides the…
It is now well established that globular clusters (GCs) exhibit star-to-star light-element abundance variations (known as multiple stellar populations, MPs). Such chemical anomalies have been found in (nearly) all the ancient GCs (more than…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
The helium abundances in the multiple populations that are now known to comprise all closely studied Milky Way globular clusters are often inferred by fitting isochrones generated from stellar evolutionary models to globular cluster…
Recent observations and modeling of globular clusters with multiple populations strongly indicate the presence of super helium-rich subpopulations in old stellar systems. Motivated by this, we have constructed new population synthesis…
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…
Globular clusters were thought to be simple stellar populations, but recent photometric and spectroscopic evidence suggests that the clusters' early formation history was more complicated. In particular, clusters show star-to-star abundance…
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…
It has long been suggested that helium nuclei in the intracluster plasma can sediment in the cluster gravitational potential well. Some theoretical estimates for the cores of relaxed clusters predict an excess of helium abundance by up to a…
ABRIDGED) We revise the formation of Galactic GCs by adding the detailed chemical composition of their different stellar generations (from 1200 giants in 19 GCs) to their global parameters. We propose to identify as GCs those showing the…
Multiple Populations represent the standard for Globular Clusters (GC): a fraction (10-50%) of their stars have the same elemental abundances of halo stars of similar metallicity (first generation, or 1G), but the other stars (second…
We present a novel method combining existing cosmological simulations and orbital integration to study the hierarchical assembly of globular cluster (GC) populations in the Milky Way (MW). Our method models the growth and evolution of GC…
Globular clusters (GCs) are thought to be ancient relics from the early formative phase of galaxies, although their physical origin remains uncertain. GCs are most numerous around massive elliptical galaxies, where they can exhibit a broad…