Bibcode
Milone, A. P.; Piotto, G.; Bedin, L. R.; Cassisi, S.; Anderson, J.; Marino, A. F.; Pietrinferni, A.; Aparicio, A.
Referencia bibliográfica
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 537, id.A77
Fecha de publicación:
1
2012
Revista
Número de citas
68
Número de citas referidas
63
Descripción
High-precision HST photometry has revealed that the globular cluster
(GC) NGC 2808 hosts a triple main sequence (MS) corresponding to three
stellar populations with different helium abundances. We carried out
photometry on ACS/WFC HST images of NGC 2808 with the main purpose of
measuring the luminosity function (LF) of stars in the three different
MSs, and the binary fraction in the cluster. We used isochrones to
transform the observed LFs into mass functions (MFs). We estimate that
the fraction of binary systems in NGC 2808 is fbin ≃
0.05, and find that the three MSs have very similar LFs. The slopes of
the corresponding MFs are α = -1.2 ± 0.3 for the red MS,
α = -0.9 ± 0.3 for the middle MS, and α = -0.9
± 0.4 for the blue one, the same, to within the errors. There is
marginal evidence of a MF flattening for masses ℳ ≤
0.6ℳ&sun; for the the reddest (primordial) MS. These
results represent the first direct measurement of the present-day MF and
LF in distinct stellar populations of a GC, and provide constraints on
models of the formation and evolution of multiple generations of stars
in these objects.
Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained
at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA,
Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555, under the programs GO-9899 and
GO-10922.Appendices are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org
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