The chemical composition of red giant stars in four intermediate-age clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

This paper presents the chemical abundance analysis of a sample of 27 red giant stars located in 4 popolous intermediate-age globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud, namely NGC 1651, 1783, 1978 and 2173. This analysis is based on high-resolution (R ~ 47000) spectra obtained with the UVES@VLT spectrograph. For each cluster we derived up to 20 abundance ratios sampling the main chemical elemental groups, namely light odd-Z, alpha, iron-peak and neutron-capture elements. All the analysed abundance patterns behave similarly in the 4 clusters and also show negligible star-to-star scatter within each cluster. We find [Fe/H]=-0.30+-0.03, -0.35+-0.02, -0.38+-0.02 and -0.51+-0.03 dex for NGC 1651, 1783, 1978 and 2173, respectively. The measurement of light odd-Z nuclei gives slightly subsolar [Na/Fe] and a more significant [Al/Fe] depletion (~ -0.50 dex). The [alpha / Fe] abundance ratios are nearly solar, while the iron-peak elements well trace that one of the iron. s-process elements behave in a peculiar way: light s-elements give subsolar [Y/Fe] and [Zr/Fe] abundance ratios, while heavy s-elements give enhanced [Ba/Fe], [La/Fe] and [Nd/Fe] with respect to the solar values. Also, the [Eu/Fe] abundance ratio turns out to be enhanced (~ 0.4 dex).

Accepted for publication on AJ

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