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Raffaele G. Gratton

Publications and source records attributed to Raffaele G. Gratton.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Observational evidence for a different IMF in the early Galaxy

The unexpected high incidence of carbon-enhanced, s-process enriched unevolved stars amongst extremely metal-poor stars in the halo provides a significant constraint on the Initial Mass Function (IMF) in the early Galaxy. We argue that these objects are evidence for the past existence of a large population of intermediate-mass stars, and conclude that the IMF in the early Galaxy was different from the present, and shifted toward higher masses.

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An abundance analysis for four Red Horizontal Branch Stars in the extremely metal rich globular cluster NGC 6528

We present the results of the first analysis of high dispersion spectra of four red HB stars in the metal rich globular cluster NGC 6528, located in Baade's Window. We find that the mean [Fe/H] for NGC 6528 is +0.07+-0.01 dex (error of the mean), with a star-to-star scatter of sigma = 0.02 dex (4 stars), although the total error is likely to be larger (~0.1 dex) due to systematic errors related to the effective temperature scale and to model atmospheres. This metallicity is somewhat larger than both the mean abundance in the galactic bulge found by McWilliam & Rich (1994) and that found in our previous paper for NGC 6553. However, we find that the spectra of clump stars in NGC 6528 and NGC 6553 are very similar each other, the slightly different metal abundances found being possibly due to the different atmospheric parameters adopted in the two analyses. For NGC 6528 we find excesses for the alpha-process elements Si and Ca ([Si/Fe]=+0.4 and [Ca/Fe]=+0.2), whereas Mn is found to be underabundant ([Mn/Fe]=-0.4). We find a solar abundance of O; however this is somewhat uncertain due to the dependence of the O abundance on the adopted atmospheric parameters and to coupling between C and O abundances in these cool, metal-rich stars. Finally, we find large Na excesses ([Na/Fe]~ +0.4) in all stars examined. Since the present analysis is based on higher quality material, we propose to revise our previous published metal abundance for NGC 6553 to [Fe/H]=$0.06+-0.15.

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An Abundance Analysis for Five Red Horizontal Branch Stars in the Extremely Metal Rich Globular Cluster NGC 6553

We provide a high dispersion line-by-line abundance analysis of five red HB stars in the extremely metal rich galactic globular cluster NGC 6553. These red HB stars are significantly hotter than the very cool stars near the tip of the giant branch in such a metal rich globular cluster and hence their spectra are much more amenable to an abundance analysis than would be the case for red giants. We find that the mean [Fe/H] for NGC 6553 is -0.16 dex, comparable to the mean abundance in the galactic bulge found by McWilliam & Rich (1994) and considerably higher than that obtained from an analysis of two red giants in this cluster by Barbuy etal (1999). The relative abundance for the best determined alpha process element (Ca) indicates an excess of alpha process elements of about a factor of two. The metallicity of NGC 6553 reaches the average of the Galactic bulge and of the solar neighborhood.

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The absolute magnitude of field metal-poor horizontal branch stars

HIPPARCOS satellite parallaxes for 22 metal-poor field horizontal branch stars with Vo<9 are used to derive their absolute magnitude. The weighted mean value is Mv=+0.69+/-0.10 for an average metallicity of [Fe/H]=-1.41; a somewhat brighter average magnitude of Mv=+0.60+/-0.12 for an average metallicity of [Fe/H]=-1.51 is obtained eliminating HD17072, that might be on the first ascent of the giant branch rather than on the horizontal branch. The present values agree with determinations based on proper motions and application of the Baade-Wesselink method to field RR Lyraes; they are from 0.1 to 0.2 mag fainter than those based on calibration of cluster distances obtained by using local subdwarfs, and on alternative distance calibrators for the LMC. The possibility that there is a real difference between the luminosity of the horizontal branch for clusters and the field is briefly commented.

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