The main sequences of NGC2808: constraints on the early disc accretion scenario

[Abridged] A new scenario --early disc accretion-- has been proposed very recently to explain the origin of the multiple population phenomenon in Galactic globular clusters. It envisages the possibility that a fraction of low- and very low-mass cluster stars may accrete the ejecta of interacting massive binary (and possibly also fast rotating massive) stars during the fully convective, pre-main sequence stage, to reproduce the CN and ONa anticorrelations observed among stars in individual clusters. This scenario is assumed to be able to explain the presence (and properties) of the multiple populations in the majority of globular clusters in the Milky Way. Here we have considered the well studied cluster NGC 2808, which displays a triple main sequence with well defined and separate He abundances. Knowledge of these abundances allowed us to put strong constraints on the He mass fraction and amount of matter to be accreted by low-mass pre-main sequence stars. We find that the minimum He mass fraction in the accreted gas has to be $\sim0.44$ to produce the observed sequences and that at fixed initial mass of the accreting star, different efficiencies for the accretion are required to produce stars placed onto the multiple main sequences. This may be explained by differences in the orbital properties of the progenitors and/or different spatial distribution of intracluster gas with varying He abundances. Both O-Na and C-N anticorrelations appear naturally along the main sequences, once considering the predicted relationship between He and CNONa abundances in the ejecta of the polluters. As a consequence of the accretion, we predict no discontinuity between the abundance ranges covered by intermediate and blue main sequence stars, but we find a sizeable (several 0.1 dex) discontinuity of the N and Na abundances between objects on the intermediate and red main sequences.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, Astronomy & Astrophysics in pres

Chemical element transport in stellar evolution models

Stellar evolution computations provide the foundation of several methods applied to study the evolutionary properties of stars and stellar populations, both Galactic and extragalactic. The accuracy of the results obtained with these techniques is linked to the accuracy of the stellar models, and in this context the correct treatment of the transport of chemical elements is crucial. Unfortunately, in many respects calculations of the evolution of the chemical abundance profiles in stars are still affected by sometime sizable uncertainties. Here, we review the various mechanisms of element transport included in the current generation of stellar evolution calculations, how they are implemented, the free parameters and uncertainties involved, the impact on the models, and the observational constraints.Comment: 72 pages, 33 figures, invited review paper to be published in Royal Society Open Science Journa

Hot Horizontal Branch Stars: Predictions for Mass Loss

We predict mass-loss rates for the late evolutionary phases of low-mass stars, with special emphasis on the consequences for the morphology of the Horizontal Branch (HB). We show that the computed rates, as predicted by the most plausible mechanism of radiation pressure on spectral lines, are too low to produce EHB/sdB stars. This invalidates the scenario recently outlined by Yong et al. (2000) to create these objects by mass loss on the HB. We argue, however, that mass loss plays a role in the distribution of rotational velocities of hot HB stars, and may -- together with the enhancement of heavy element abundances due to radiative levitation -- provide an explanation for the so-called ``low gravivity problem. The mass loss recipe derived for hot HB (and extreme HB, sdB, sdOB) stars may also be applied to post-HB (AGB-manque, UV-bright) stars over a range in effective temperatures between 12500 -- 40000 K.Comment: 11 pages; Accepted by A&

From Theory to Observations and viceversa: theoretical uncertainties and observational constraints

During these last decades, our knowledge of evolutionary and structural properties of stars of different mass and chemical composition is significantly improved. This result has been achieved as a consequence of our improved capability in understanding and describing the physical behavior of matter in the different thermal regimes characteristic of the various stellar mass ranges and evolutionary stages. This notwithstanding, current generation of stellar models is still affected by significant and, usually, not negligible uncertainties. These uncertainties are related to our poor knowledge of some physical proceses occurring in the real stars such as, for instance, some thermodynamical processes, nuclear reaction rates, as well as the efficiency of mixing processes. These drawbacks of stellar models have to be properly taken into account when comparing theory with observations in order to derive relevant information about the properties of both resolved and unresolved stellar populations. On the other hand, observations of both field and cluster stars can provide fundamental benchmarks for constraining the reliability and accuracy of the theoretical framework. In the following we review some important evolutionary and structural properties of very-low and low-mass stars, as well as the most important uncertainties affecting the stellar models for such stars. We show what are the main sources of uncertainty along the main evolutionary stages, and discuss the present level of agreement between theory and observations.Comment: 54 pages, 19 figures, Contribution for the proceeding of the 23^rd Evry Schatzman School on Stellar Astrophysics, "The Ages of Stars", Roscoff (France), 2013, EAS Publications Serie

The red giant branch phase transition: Implications for the RGB luminosity function bump and detections of Li-rich red clump stars

We performed a detailed study of the evolution of the luminosity of He-ignition stage and of the red giant branch bump luminosity during the red giant branch phase transition for various metallicities. To this purpose we calculated a grid of stellar models that sample the mass range of the transition with a fine mass step equal to ${\rm 0.01M_\odot}$. We find that for a stellar population with a given initial chemical composition, there is a critical age (of 1.1-1.2~Gyr) around which a decrease in age of just 20-30 million years causes a drastic drop in the red giant branch tip brightness. We also find a narrow age range (a few $10^7$ yr) around the transition, characterized by the luminosity of the red giant branch bump being brighter than the luminosity of He ignition. We discuss a possible link between this occurrence and observations of Li-rich core He-burning stars.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Astronomy & Astrophysics in pres

Multiple populations in massive star clusters under the magnifying glass of photometry: Theory and tools

The existence of star-to-star light-element abundance variations in massive Galactic and extragalactic star clusters has fairly recently superseded the traditional paradigm of individual clusters hosting stars with the same age, and uniform chemical composition. Several scenarios have been put forward to explain the origin of this multiple stellar population phenomenon, but so far all have failed to reproduce the whole range of key observations. Complementary to high-resolution spectroscopy, which has first revealed and characterized chemically the presence of multiple populations in Galactic globular clusters, photometry has been instrumental in investigating this phenomenon in much larger samples of stars --adding a number of crucial observational constraints and correlations with global cluster properties-- and in the discovery and characterization of multiple populations also in Magellanic Clouds' intermediate age clusters. The purpose of this review is to present the theoretical underpinning and application of the photometric techniques devised to identify and study multiple populations in resolved star clusters. These methods have played and continue to play a crucial role in advancing our knowledge of the cluster multiple population phenomenon, and promise to extend the scope of these investigations to resolved clusters even beyond the Local Group, with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.Comment: 57 pages, 32 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Revie

Stellar models: firm evidence, open questions and future developments

During this last decade our knowledge of the evolutionary properties of stars has significantly improved. This result has been achieved thanks to our improved understanding of the physical behavior of stellar matter in the thermal regimes characteristic of the different stellar mass ranges and/or evolutionary stages. This notwithstanding, the current generation of stellar models is still affected by several, not negligible, uncertainties related to our poor knowledge of some thermodynamical processes and nuclear reaction rates, as well as the efficiency of mixing processes. These drawbacks have to be properly taken into account when comparing theory with observations, to derive evolutionary properties of both resolved and unresolved stellar populations. In this paper we review the major sources of uncertainty along the main evolutionary stages, and emphasize their impact on population synthesis techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Keynote review talk at the IAU Symp. 262 "Stellar Populations - Planning the Next Decade" of the XXVIIth IAU General Assembly held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Proceeding eds. G. Bruzual & S. Charlo

The BaSTI Stellar Evolution Database: models for extremely metal-poor and super-metal-rich stellar populations

We present an extension of the BaSTI stellar evolution database to extremely metal poor (${\rm Z=10^{-5}}$) and super-metal-rich (Z=0.05) metallicities, with both scaled-solar and $\alpha$-enhanced ([$\alpha$/Fe]=0.4) heavy element distributions. These new tracks (from the pre-main sequence to the early-asymptotic giant branch phase), horizontal branch models and isochrones, will enable the use of the BaSTI database to study, i.e., the most metal poor populations found in Local Group faint dwarf galaxies, and the metal rich component of the Galactic bulge. An overview of several fundamental predictions of stellar evolution over the full metallicity range of BaSTI is presented, together with comparisons with literature calculations at ${\rm Z=10^{-5}}$ and Z=0.05.Comment: 11 pages, 15 Figures, A&A in pres

The impact of enhanced He and CNONa abundances on globular cluster relative age-dating methods

The impact that unrecognised differences in the chemical patterns of Galactic globular clusters have on their relative age determinations is studied. The two most widely used relative age-dating methods, horizontal and vertical, together with the more recent relative MS-fitting method, were carefully analyzed on a purely theoretical basis. The BaSTI library was adopted to perform the present analysis. We find that relative ages derived using the horizontal and vertical methods are largely dependent on the initial He content and heavy element distribution. Unrecognized cluster-to-cluster chemical abundance differences can lead to an error in the derived relative ages as large as ~0.5 (or ~6 Gyr if an age of 12.8 Gyr is adopted for normalization), and even larger for some extreme cases. It is shown that the relative MS-fitting method is by far the age-dating technique for which undetected cluster-to-cluster differences in the He abundance have less impact. Present results are used in order to pose constraints on the maximum possible spread in the He and CNONa elements abundances on the basis of the estimates - taken from the literature - of the Galactic globular clusters relative age dispersion obtained with the various relative age-dating techniques. Finally, it is shown that the age-metallicity relation found for young Galactic globular clusters by the GC Treasury program is a real age sequence and cannot be produced by variations in the He and/or heavy element distribution.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ