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The Search for Multiple Populations in Magellanic Cloud Clusters I: Two Stellar Populations in the Small Magellanic Cloud Globular Cluster NGC 121

Niederhofer, F, Bastian, N, Kozhurina-Platais, V, Larsen, S, Salaris, M, Dalessandro, E, Mucciarelli, A, Cabrera-Ziri, I, Cordero, M, Geisler, D, Hilker, M, Hollyhead, K, Kacharov, N, Lardo, C, Li, C, Mackey, D and Platais, I (2017) The Search for Multiple Populations in Magellanic Cloud Clusters I: Two Stellar Populations in the Small Magellanic Cloud Globular Cluster NGC 121. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 464 (1). pp. 94-103. ISSN 0035-8711

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Abstract

We started a photometric survey using the WFC3/UVIS instrument onboard the Hubble Space Telescope to search for multiple populations within Magellanic Cloud star clusters at various ages. In this paper, we introduce this survey. As first results of this programme, we also present multi-band photometric observations of NGC 121 in different filters taken with the WFC3/UVIS and ACS/WFC instruments. We analyze the colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) of NGC 121, which is the only "classical" globular cluster within the Small Magellanic Cloud. Thereby, we use the pseudo-colour C_(F336W,F438W,F343N)=(F336W-F438W)-(F438W-F343N) to separate populations with different C and N abundances. We show that the red giant branch splits up in two distinct populations when using this colour combination. NGC 121 thus appears to be similar to Galactic globular clusters in hosting multiple populations. The fraction of enriched stars (N rich, C poor) in NGC 121 is about 32% +/- 3%, which is lower than the median fraction found in Milky Way globular clusters. The enriched population seems to be more centrally concentrated compared to the primordial one. These results are consistent with the recent results by Dalessandro et al. (2016). The morphology of the Horizontal Branch in a CMD using the optical filters F555W and F814W is best produced by a population with a spread in Helium of Delta(Y) =0.025+/-0.005.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©:2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords: astro-ph.SR; astro-ph.SR; astro-ph.GA
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions: Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Related URLs:
Date Deposited: 14 Nov 2016 12:15
Last Modified: 20 Apr 2022 09:14
DOI or ID number: 10.1093/mnras/stw2269
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4808
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