Bibcode
VandenBerg, D. A.; Brogaard, K.; Leaman, R.; Casagrande, L.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 775, Issue 2, article id. 134, 47 pp. (2013).
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2013
Journal
Citations
410
Refereed citations
377
Description
Ages have been derived for 55 globular clusters (GCs) for which Hubble
Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys photometry is publicly
available. For most of them, the assumed distances are based on fits of
theoretical zero-age horizontal-branch (ZAHB) loci to the lower bound of
the observed distributions of HB stars, assuming reddenings from
empirical dust maps and metallicities from the latest spectroscopic
analyses. The age of the isochrone that provides the best fit to the
stars in the vicinity of the turnoff (TO) is taken to be the best
estimate of the cluster age. The morphology of isochrones between the TO
and the beginning part of the subgiant branch (SGB) is shown to be
nearly independent of age and chemical abundances. For well-defined
color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), the error bar arising just from the
"fitting" of ZAHBs and isochrones is ≈ ± 0.25 Gyr, while that
associated with distance and chemical abundance uncertainties is ~
± 1.5-2 Gyr. The oldest GCs in our sample are predicted to have
ages of ≈13.0 Gyr (subject to the aforementioned uncertainties).
However, the main focus of this investigation is on relative GC ages. In
conflict with recent findings based on the relative main-sequence
fitting method, which have been studied in some detail and reconciled
with our results, ages are found to vary from mean values of ≈12.5
Gyr at [Fe/H] <~ – 1.7 to ≈11 Gyr at [Fe/H] >~ –1.
At intermediate metallicities, the age-metallicity relation (AMR)
appears to be bifurcated: one branch apparently contains clusters with
disk-like kinematics, whereas the other branch, which is displaced to
lower [Fe/H] values by ≈0.6 dex at a fixed age, is populated by
clusters with halo-type orbits. The dispersion in age about each
component of the AMR is ~ ± 0.5 Gyr. There is no apparent
dependence of age on Galactocentric distance (R G) nor is
there a clear correlation of HB type with age. As previously discovered
in the case of M3 and M13, subtle variations have been found in the
slope of the SGB in the CMDs of other metal-poor ([Fe/H] <~ –
1.5) GCs. They have been tentatively attributed to cluster-to-cluster
differences in the abundance of helium. Curiously, GCs that have
relatively steep "M13-like" SGBs tend to be massive systems, located at
small R G, that show the strongest evidence of in situ
formation of multiple stellar populations. The clusters in the other
group are typically low-mass systems (with 2-3 exceptions, including M3)
that, at the present time, should not be able to retain the matter lost
by mass-losing stars due either to the development of GC winds or to
ram-pressure stripping by the halo interstellar medium. The apparent
separation of the two groups in terms of their present-day gas retention
properties is difficult to understand if all GCs were initially ~20
times their current masses. The lowest-mass systems, in particular, may
have never been massive enough to retain enough gas to produce a
significant population of second-generation stars. In this case, the
observed light element abundance variations, which are characteristic of
all GCs, were presumably present in the gas out of which the observed
cluster stars formed.
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