Bibcode
DOI
Gallart, Carme; Freedman, Wendy L.; Mateo, Mario; Chiosi, Cesare; Thompson, Ian B.; Aparicio, A.; Bertelli, Gianpaolo; Hodge, Paul W.; Lee, Myung G.; Olszewski, Edward W.; Saha, Abhijit; Stetson, Peter B.; Suntzeff, Nicholas B.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 514, Issue 2, pp. 665-674.
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4
1999
Journal
Citations
55
Refereed citations
43
Description
We present deep HST F555W (V) and F814W (I) observations of a central
field in the Local Group dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Leo I. The
resulting color-magnitude diagram (CMD) reaches I~=26 and reveals the
oldest ~=10-15 Gyr old turnoffs. Nevertheless, a horizontal branch is
not obvious in the CMD. Given the low metallicity of the galaxy, this
likely indicates that the first substantial star formation in the galaxy
may have been somehow delayed in Leo I in comparison with the other dSph
satellites of the Milky Way. The subgiant region is well and uniformly
populated from the oldest turnoffs up to the 1 Gyr old turnoff,
indicating that star formation has proceeded in a continuous way, with
possible variations in intensity but no big gaps between successive
bursts, over the galaxy's lifetime. The structure of the red clump of
core He-burning stars is consistent with the large amount of
intermediate-age population inferred from the main sequence and the
subgiant region. In spite of the lack of gas in Leo I, the CMD clearly
shows star formation continuing until 1 Gyr ago and possibly until a few
hundred Myr ago in the central part of the galaxy.