Related papers: Surface pollution of main-sequence stars through e…
The observational study of stars in the sub-millimetre regime has only rather recently begun and was made possible mainly by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The emission mechanisms of this radiation from normal MS…
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 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…
Globular clusters contain many stars with surface abundance patterns indicating contributions from hydrogen burning products, as seen in the anti-correlated elemental abundances of e.g. sodium and oxygen, and magnesium and aluminium.…
We model the evolution of manganese relative to iron in the progenitor system of the globular cluster Omega Centauri by means of a self-consistent chemical evolution model. We use stellar yields that already reproduce the measurements of…
We have recently presented observational evidence which suggests that the origin of the second generation (G2) stars in globular clusters (GCs) is due to the binary-mediated collision of primordial (G1) low-mass main-sequence (MS) stars.…
In order to account for the chemical composition of a stellar second generation (SG), Globular Clusters (GCs) evolution models based on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) scenario so far included only the yields available for the massive AGB…
We explore two possible scenarios to explain the observed gamma-ray emission associated with the atypical globular cluster Omega-Centauri: emission from millisecond pulsars (MSP) and dark matter (DM) annihilation. In the first case the…
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…
Hot subluminous stars lying up to 0.7 mag below the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) are found in the UV color-magnitude diagrams of omega Cen and NGC 2808. Such stars are unexplained by canonical HB theory. In order to explore the origin of…
We present HST observations that show a bifurcation of colors in the middle main sequence of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. We see this in three different fields, observed with different cameras and filters. We also present high…
Recent observations of heavy elements in Globular Clusters reveal intriguing deviations from the standard paradigm of the early galactic nucleosynthesis. If the r-process contamination is a common feature of halo stars, s-process…
We present spectroscopic abundances and radial velocities for giant stars in the Galactic globular cluster omega Centauri based on the CaII infrared triplet. Two samples of stars were observed: 234 stars at M_V = 1.25 on the lower giant…
The double main sequence identified in the globular cluster Omega Centauri has been interpreted using isochrones to indicate a large variation in the abundance of helium. If true, a helium enhancement carries strong implications for the…
Abundances relative to iron for carbon, nitrogen, strontium and barium are presented for 33 stars on the red giant branch of the globular cluster omega Centauri. They are based on intermediate-resolution spectroscopic data covering the blue…
This paper describes observations of a new phenomenon in evolved mass-losing AGB stars: the presence of two winds with different expansion velocities. CO(2-1) and CO(3-2) line emission was observed for 45 AGB stars at high velocity…
Near-infrared spectra of 21 giants in omega Centauri, spanning the whole range of metallicities observed in this cluster, are presented. This work is part of a coordinated photometric and spectroscopic campaign in the optical and in the…
Almost several decades after the discovery of the first multiple populations in galactic globular clusters (GC) the debate on their formation is still extremely current and NGC2808 remains one of the best benchmark to test any scenario for…
Globular clusters exhibit abundance variations, defining `multiple populations', which have prompted a protracted search for their origin. Properties requiring explanation include: the high fraction of polluted stars ($\sim…
In the complex picture of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters (GCs), a special role is played by NGC 5139 Omega Centauri. At variance with the majority of GCs, Omega Cen exhibits significant star-to-star variations in…