Number of results to display per page
Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/134/1298
- Title:
- CaII equivalent widths in 29 Galactic clusters
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/134/1298
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- From observations of almost 500 red giant branch stars in 29 Galactic open and globular clusters, we have investigated the behavior of the infrared Ca II triplet (8498, 8542, and 8662{AA}) in the age range 13Gyr<=age<=0.25Gyr and the metallicity range -2.2<=[Fe/H]<=+0.47. These are the widest ranges of ages and metallicities in which the behavior of the Ca II triplet lines has been investigated in a homogeneous way. We report the first empirical study of the variation of the Ca II triplet lines' strength, for given metallicities, with respect to luminosity.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/136/1039
- Title:
- CaII index of SMC red giant branch stars
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/136/1039
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present stellar metallicities derived from Ca II triplet spectroscopy in over 350 red giant branch stars in 13 fields distributed in different positions in the Small Magellanic Cloud, ranging from ~1{deg} to ~4{deg} from its center. In the innermost fields, the average metallicity is [Fe/H]~-1. This value decreases when we move away toward outermost regions. This is the first detection of a spectroscopic metallicity gradient in this galaxy. We show that the metallicity gradient is related to an age gradient, in the sense that more metal-rich stars, which are also younger, are concentrated in the central regions of the galaxy.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/327/918
- Title:
- CaII in extragalactic red giants
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/327/918
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Spectroscopic abundance determinations for stars spanning a Hubble time in age are necessary in order to determine unambiguously the evolutionary histories of galaxies. Using FORS1 in multi-object spectroscopy mode on ANTU (UT1) at the ESO VLT on Paranal, we have obtained near-infrared spectra from which we have measured the equivalent widths of the two strongest Ca II triplet lines to determine metal abundances for a sample of red giant branch stars, selected from ESO NTT optical (I, V-I) photometry of three nearby Local Group galaxies: the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal, the Fornax dwarf spheroidal and the dwarf irregular NGC 6822. The summed equivalent width of the two strongest lines in the Ca II triplet absorption-line feature, centred at 8500{AA}, can be readily converted into an [Fe/H] abundance using the previously established calibrations by Armandroff & Da Costa (1991AJ....101.1329A) and Rutledge, Hesser & Stetson (1997, Cat. <J/PASP/109/883>). We have measured metallicities for 37 stars in Sculptor, 32 stars in Fornax and 23 stars in NGC 6822, yielding more precise estimates of the metallicity distribution functions for these galaxies than it is possible to obtain photometrically. In the case of NGC 6822, this is the first direct measurement of the abundances of the intermediate-age and old stellar populations. We find metallicity spreads in each galaxy which are broadly consistent with the photometric width of the red giant branch, although the abundances of individual stars do not always appear to correspond to their colour. This is almost certainly predominantly due to a highly variable star formation rate with time in these galaxies, which results in a non-uniform, non-globular-cluster-like evolution of the Ca/Fe ratio.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/139/1168
- Title:
- CaII spectroscopy of SMC fields stars
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/139/1168
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have obtained metallicities of ~360 red giant stars distributed in 15 Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) fields from near-infrared spectra covering the CaII triplet lines using the VLT + FORS2.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/138/517
- Title:
- CaII spectroscopy of SMC red giants
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/138/517
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have obtained near-infrared spectra covering the CaII triplet lines for a large number of stars associated with 16 Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) clusters using the VLT + FORS2. These data compose the largest available sample of SMC clusters with spectroscopically derived abundances and velocities. Our clusters span a wide range of ages and provide good areal coverage of the galaxy.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/149/154
- Title:
- CaII spectroscopy of SMC red giants. III.
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/149/154
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We obtained spectra of red giants in 15 Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) clusters in the region of the CaII lines with FORS2 on the Very Large Telescope. We determined the mean metallicity and radial velocity with mean errors of 0.05dex and 2.6km/s, respectively, from a mean of 6.5 members per cluster. One cluster (B113) was too young for a reliable metallicity determination and was excluded from the sample. We combined the sample studied here with 15 clusters previously studied by us using the same technique, and with 7 clusters whose metallicities determined by other authors are on a scale similar to ours. This compilation of 36 clusters is the largest SMC cluster sample currently available with accurate and homogeneously determined metallicities. We found a high probability that the metallicity distribution is bimodal, with potential peaks at -1.1 and -0.8dex. Our data show no strong evidence of a metallicity gradient in the SMC clusters, somewhat at odds with recent evidence from CaII triplet spectra of a large sample of field stars. This may be revealing possible differences in the chemical history of clusters and field stars. Our clusters show a significant dispersion of metallicities, whatever age is considered, which could be reflecting the lack of a unique age-metallicity relation in this galaxy. None of the chemical evolution models currently available in the literature satisfactorily represents the global chemical enrichment processes of SMC clusters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/152/58
- Title:
- CaII spectroscopy of SMC red giants. IV.
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/152/58
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This paper represents a major step forward in the systematic and homogeneous study of Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) star clusters and field stars carried out by applying the calcium triplet technique. We present in this work the radial velocity and metallicity of approximately 400 red giant stars in 15 SMC fields, with typical errors of about 7km/s and 0.16dex, respectively. We added to this information our previously determined metallicity values for 29 clusters and approximately 350 field stars using the identical techniques. Using this enlarged sample, we analyze the metallicity distribution and gradient in this galaxy. We also compare the chemical properties of the clusters and of their surrounding fields. We find a number of surprising results. While the clusters, taken as a whole, show no strong evidence for a metallicity gradient (MG), the field stars exhibit a clear negative gradient in the inner region of the SMC, consistent with the recent results of Dobbie et al. For distances to the center of the galaxy less than 4{deg}, field stars show a considerably smaller metallicity dispersion than that of the clusters. However, in the external SMC regions, clusters and field stars exhibit similar metallicity dispersions. Moreover, in the inner region of the SMC, clusters appear to be concentrated in two groups: one more metal-poor and another more metal-rich than field stars. Individually considered, neither cluster group presents an MG. Most surprisingly, the MG for both stellar populations (clusters and field stars) appears to reverse sign in the outer regions of the SMC. The difference between the cluster metallicity and the mean metallicity of the surrounding field stars turns out to be a strong function of the cluster metallicity. These results could be indicating different chemical evolution histories for these two SMC stellar populations. They could also indicate variations in the chemical behavior of the SMC in its internal and external regions.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/563/A76
- Title:
- CaII triplet equivalent widths in 30 globulars
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/563/A76
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- When they are established with sufficient precision, the ages, metallicities and kinematics of Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) can shed much light on the dynamical and chemical evolution of the Galactic halo and bulge. While the most fundamental way of determining GC abundances is by mean high-resolution spectroscopy, in practice this method is limited to only the brighter stars in the nearest and less reddened objects. This restriction has, over the years, led to the development of a large number of techniques that measure the overall abundance indirectly from parameters that correlate with overall metallicity. One of the most efficient methods is measuring of the equivalent width (EW) of the calcium II triplet (CaT) at {lambda}~~8500{AA} in red giants, which are corrected for the luminosity and temperature effects using the V magnitude differences from the horizontal branch (HB). We establish a similar method in the near-infrared (NIR), by combining the power of the differential magnitudes technique with the advantages of NIR photometry to minimize differential reddening effects. We used the Ks magnitude difference between the star and the reddest part of the HB (RHB) or of the red clump (RC) to generate reduced equivalent widths (rEW) from the previously presented datasets. Then we calibrated these rEW against three previously reported different metallicity scales; one of which we corrected using high-resolution spectroscopic metallicities.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/383/183
- Title:
- CaII triplet of RGB from VLT/FLAMES obs.
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/383/183
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We demonstrate that low-resolution CaII triplet (CaT) spectroscopic estimates of the overall metallicity ([Fe/H]) of individual red giant branch (RGB) stars in two nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) agree to +/-0.1-0.2dex with detailed high-resolution spectroscopic determinations for the same stars over the range -2.5<[Fe/H]<-0.5. For this study, we used a sample of 129 stars observed in low- and high-resolution modes with VLT/FLAMES in the Sculptor and Fornax dSphs. We also present the data-reduction steps we used in our low-resolution analysis and show that the typical accuracy of our velocity and CaT [Fe/H] measurement is ~2km/s and 0.1dex, respectively. We conclude that CaT[Fe/H] relations calibrated on globular clusters can be applied with confidence to RGB stars in composite stellar populations over the range -2.5<[Fe/H]<-0.5.
