The link between chemical anomalies along the red giant branch and the horizontal branch extension in globular clusters

Abstract

We find a strong correlation between the extension of the Na-O anticorrelation observed in red giant branch (RGB) stars and the high temperature extension of the horizontal branch (HB) blue tails of Galactic globular clusters (GCs). The longer is the O-depleted tail of the Na-O anticorrelation observed in the RGB stars, the higher is the maximum temperature reached by the bluest HB stars in the GC. This result provides a clear, empirical evidence of a link between the extension of the HB and the presence of star-to-star abundance variations of proton-capture elements in GC stars. We discuss the possible interpretation of this correlation.

Comments: 6 pages, 1 figure, uses emulateapj.cls; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (4)

• Fast rotating massive stars and the origin of the abundance patterns in galactic globular clusters
• Na-O Anticorrelation and HB. II. The Na-O anticorrelation in the globular cluster NGC 6752
• Na-O Anticorrelation and HB. IV. Detection of He-rich and He-poor stellar populations in the globular cluster NGC 6218
• Spectroscopy of horizontal branch stars in NGC6752 - Anomalous results on atmospheric parameters and masses

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