Related papers: The Chemical Evolution of Helium in Globular Clust…
Using a chemical evolution model we investigate the intriguing suggestion that there are populations of stars in some globular clusters (e.g. NGC 2808, omega Centauri) with enhanced levels of helium (Y from about 0.28 to 0.40) compared to…
In four globular clusters (GCs) a non negligible fraction of stars can be interpreted only as a very helium rich population. The evidence comes from the presence of a "blue" main sequence in $\omega$ Cen and NGC 2808, and from the the very…
The majority of the inhomogeneities in the chemical composition of Globular Cluster (GC) stars appear due to primordial enrichment. The most studied model today claims that the ejecta of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars of high mass…
It is becoming clear that `self--pollution' by the ejecta of massive asymptotic giant branch stars has an important role in the early chemical evolution of globular cluster stars, producing CNO abundance spreads which are observed also at…
Full evolutionary models have been built to follow the phases of asymptotic giant branch evolution with mass loss for metal mass fractions from Z=0.0002 to Z=0.004. For the first time, we find that temperatures close to or even larger than…
We discuss the self-enrichment scenario by AGB stars for the formation of multiple populations in globular clusters (GCs) by analyzing data set of giant stars observed in 9 Galactic GCs, covering a wide range of metallicities and for which…
The most massive Galactic globular cluster, Omega centauri, appears to have multiple populations. Its bluest main sequence and extended horizontal branch stars are suggested to have the common origin, that is, an extremely high helium…
The various scenarios proposed for the origin of the multiple, helium-enriched populations in massive globular clusters are critically compared to the relevant constraining observations. Among accretion of helium-rich material by…
We present stellar yields computed from detailed models of intermediate mass asymptotic giant branch stars of low metallicity. In this work, the whole main microphysics inputs have been updated, and in particular alpha-enhancement is…
Recently, the study of globular cluster (GC) CMDs has shown that some of them harbor multiple populations with different chemical compositions and/or ages. In the first case, the most common candidate is a spread in the initial helium…
Various galactic globular clusters display abundance anomalies that affect the morphology of their colour-magnitude diagrams. In this paper we consider the possibility of helium enhancement in the anomalous horizontal branch of NGC 2808. We…
The majority of the inhomogeneities in the chemical composition of Globular Cluster (GC) stars appear due to primordial enrichment by hot-CNO cycled material processed in stars belonging to a first stellar generation. Either massive AGB…
A self-consistent model of the chemical evolution of the globular cluster NGC 6752 is presented to test a popular theory that observed abundance anomalies are due to ``internal pollution'' from intermediate mass asymptotic giant branch…
Globular clusters display significant variations in their light-element content, pointing to the existence of a second stellar generation formed from the ejecta of an earlier generation. The nature of these internal polluters is still a…
We studied the color distribution of the main sequence of the Globular Cluster NGC 2808, based on new deep HST-WFPC2 photometry of a field in the uncrowded outskirts of the cluster. The color distribution of main sequence stars is wider…
Globular clusters (GCs) are spheroidal concentrations typically containing of the order of 10^5 to 10^6, predominantly old, stars. Historically, they have been considered as the closest counterparts of the idealized concept of "simple…
Lithium is made up in the envelopes of massive Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars through the process of Hot Bottom Burning. In Globular Clusters, this processing is one possible source of the hot-CNO burning whose nuclear products are…
We use Cycle 21 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and HST archival ACS Treasury observations of 30 Galactic Globular Clusters to characterize two distinct stellar populations. A sophisticated Bayesian technique is employed to…
The recent measurements of internal variations of helium in Galactic and extragalactic Globular Clusters (GCs) set binding constraints to the models of formation of Multiple Populations (MPs) in GCs, and gave rise, at the same time, to…
Internal chemical abundance spreads are one of fundamental properties of globular clusters (GCs) in the Galaxy. In order to understand the origin of such abundance spreads, we numerically investigate GC formation from massive molecular…