A Wide View of the Galactic Globular Cluster NGC 2808: Red Giant and Horizontal Branch Star Spatial Distributions

Author:

Christian I. Johnson, Annalisa Calamida, Justin A. Kader, Ivan Ferraro, Catherine A. Pilachowski, Giuseppe Bono, Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti, Armin Rest, Alfredo Zenteno, Alice Zocchi

Keyword:

Astrophysics, Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA), Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

journal:

date:

2023-05-09 16:00:00

Abstract

Wide-field and deep DECam multi-band photometry, combined with HST data for the core of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 2808, allowed us to study the distribution of various stellar sub-populations and stars in different evolutionary phases out to the cluster tidal radius. We used the C_ugi = (u-g)-(g-i) index to identify three chemically distinct sub-populations along the red giant branch and compared their spatial distributions. The most light-element enriched sub-population (P3) is more centrally concentrated; however, it shows a more extended distribution in the external regions of the cluster compared to the primordial (P1) and intermediate (P2) composition populations. Furthermore, the P3 sub-population centroid is off-center relative to those of the P1 and P2 groups. We also analyzed the spatial distribution of horizontal branch stars and found that the relative fraction of red horizontal branch stars increases for radial distances larger than ~ 1.5' while that of the blue and hotter stars decreases. These new observations, combined with literature spectroscopic measurements, suggest that the red horizontal branch stars are the progeny of all the stellar sub-populations in NGC 2808, i.e. primordial and light-element enhanced, while the blue stars are possibly the result of a combination of the "hot-flasher" and the "helium-enhanced" scenarios. A similar distribution of different red giant branch sub-populations and horizontal branch stars was also found for the most massive Galactic globular cluster, omega Cen, based on combined DECam and HST data, which suggests the two may share a similar origin.

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