ORCID Profile
0000-0002-1128-098X
Current Organisation
Università di Bologna
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 29-03-2022
Abstract: Disentangling distinct stellar populations along the red-giant branches (RGBs) of globular clusters (GCs) is possible by using the pseudo-two-colour diagram dubbed chromosome map (ChM). One of the most intriguing findings is that the so-called first-generation (1G) stars, characterized by the same chemical composition of their natal cloud, exhibit extended sequences in the ChM. Unresolved binaries and internal variations in helium or metallicity have been suggested to explain this phenomenon. Here, we derive high-precision Hubble Space Telescope photometry of the GCs NGC 6362 and NGC 6838 and build their ChMs. We find that both 1G RGB and main-sequence (MS) stars exhibit wider ChM sequences than those of second-generation (2G). The evidence of this feature even among unevolved 1G MS stars indicates that chemical inhomogeneities are imprinted in the original gas. We introduce a pseudo-two-magnitude diagram to distinguish between helium and metallicity, and demonstrate that star-to-star metallicity variations are responsible for the extended 1G sequence. Conversely, binaries provide a minor contribution to the phenomenon. We estimate that the metallicity variations within 1G stars of 55 GCs range from less than [Fe/H]∼0.05 to ∼0.30 and mildly correlate with cluster mass. We exploit these findings to constrain the formation scenarios of multiple populations showing that they are qualitatively consistent with the occurrence of multiple generations. In contrast, the fact that 2G stars have more homogeneous iron content than the 1G challenges the scenarios based on accretion of material processed in massive 1G stars on to existing protostars.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 14-03-2018
DOI: 10.1093/MNRAS/STY661
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 20-01-2021
Abstract: Modelling dust formation in single stars evolving through the carbon-star stage of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) reproduces well the mid-infrared colours and magnitudes of most of the C-rich sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), apart from a small subset of extremely red objects (EROs). An analysis of the spectral energy distributions of EROs suggests the presence of large quantities of dust, which demand gas densities in the outflow significantly higher than expected from theoretical modelling. We propose that binary interaction mechanisms that involve common envelope (CE) evolution could be a possible explanation for these peculiar stars the CE phase is favoured by the rapid growth of the stellar radius occurring after C/O overcomes unity. Our modelling of the dust provides results consistent with the observations for mass-loss rates $\\dot{M} \\sim 5\\times 10^{-4}\\,{\\rm M}_{\\odot }$ yr−1, a lower limit to the rapid loss of the envelope experienced in the CE phase. We propose that EROs could possibly hide binaries with orbital periods of about days and are likely to be responsible for a large fraction of the dust production rate in galaxies.
Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 03-2021
Abstract: Multiple stellar populations (MPs) are a distinct characteristic of globular clusters (GCs). Their general properties have been widely studied among main-sequence, red giant branch (RGB), and horizontal branch (HB) stars, but a common framework is still missing at later evolutionary stages. We studied the MP phenomenon along the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) sequences in 58 GCs, observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in UV and optical filters. Using UV–optical color–magnitude diagrams, we selected the AGB members of each cluster and identified the AGB candidates of the metal-enhanced population in type II GCs. We studied the photometric properties of the AGB stars and compared them to theoretical models derived from synthetic spectral analysis. We observed the following features: (i) the spread of AGB stars in photometric indices sensitive to variations of light elements and helium is typically larger than that expected from photometric errors (ii) the fraction of metal-enhanced stars in the AGB is lower than that in the RGB in most of the type II GCs (iii) the fraction of 1G stars derived from the chromosome map of AGB stars in 15 GCs is larger than that of RGB stars and (v) the AGB/HB frequency correlates with the average mass of the most helium-enriched population. These findings represent clear evidence of the presence of MPs along the AGB of Galactic GCs and indicate that a significant fraction of helium-enriched stars, which have lower mass in the HB, do not evolve to the AGB phase, leaving the HB sequence toward higher effective temperatures, as predicted by the AGB manqué scenario.
Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 12-2021
Abstract: Recent work has revealed two classes of globular clusters (GCs), dubbed Type I and Type II. Type II GCs are characterized by both a blue and a red red giant branch composed of stars with different metallicities, often coupled with distinct abundances in the slow neutron-capture elements (s-elements). Here we continue the chemical tagging of Type II GCs by adding the two least massive clusters of this class, NGC 1261 and NGC 6934. Based on both spectroscopy and photometry, we find red stars in NGC 1261 to be slightly enhanced in [Fe/H] by ∼0.1 dex and confirm that red stars of NGC 6934 are enhanced in iron by ∼0.2 dex. Neither NGC 1261 nor NGC 6934 show internal variations in the s-elements, which suggests a GC mass threshold for the occurrence of s -process enrichment. We found a significant correlation between the additional Fe locked in the red stars of Type II GCs and the present-day mass of the cluster. Nevertheless, most Type II GCs retained a small fraction of Fe produced by SNe II, lower than the 2% NGC 6273, M54, and ω Centauri are remarkable exceptions. In the Appendix, we infer for the first time chemical abundances of lanthanum, assumed as representative of the s-elements, in M54, the GC located in the nucleus of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. Red-sequence stars are marginally enhanced in [La/Fe] by 0.10 ± 0.06 dex, in contrast with the large [La/Fe] spread of most Type II GCs. We suggest that different processes are responsible for the enrichment in iron and s -elements in Type II GCs.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 27-09-2023
No related grants have been discovered for Marco Tailo.