J. Astrophys. Astr. (1996) 17, 1–6 The Chemical Compositions and Ages of Globular Clusters* Russell Cannon Anglo-Australian Observatory, Epping NSW 2121, Australia Received 1996 March 28; accepted 1996 May 14 Abstract. Recent technological advances have led to a dramatic improvement in the quality of photometric and spectroscopic data obtainable on stars in globular clusters. Evidence from CCD-based colour magnitude diagrams points to clear differences in age between some clusters. High dispersion spectra show that abundance variations cannot explain the observed differences. In particular, it seems that NGC 288 must be 2–3 Gyr older than NGC 362. The same spectra show that although there is a spread in some molecular band strengths in NGC 362, the total C+N+O abundance remains constant, indicating that the material has undergone varying amounts of nuclear process- ing. No variations are seen in the abundances of iron group elements. Lower dispersion spectra for a large sample of faint stars in 47 Tucanae, obtained with a multi-object optical fibre system, show that unevolved main sequence stars in that cluster share the same CNO variations as the bright giants. The conclusion from all these data is that the intra-cluster CNO variations are neither truly primordial nor due to evolutionary mixing. It may be that there was a sufficiently extended period of star formation for material from first generation stars to be used in later generations, or that some pollution has occurred due to mass loss. Finally, it is noted that if ‘prehistoric’ clusters exist with ages of around 50 Gyr, as hypothesised in some cosmological models, these should probably still be rather obvious and readily recognised. 1. Introduction When Meghnad Saha published his classic papers on ionisation theory which led directly to the quantitative determination of the physical state and chemical com- position of stellar atmospheres, Henry Norris Russell commented that this would provide years of work for astrophysicists in the future. Now, seventy years later, we are certainly still exploring many consequences of Saha’s work. This year is the centenary of Sana’s birth in India, and it is therefore a great pleasure to be able to give a report here on some small contributions to one aspect of that work, the study * Paper presented at the 6th Asian-Pacific Regional Meeting on Astronomy of the International Astronomical Union, India, 1993. 1 2 Russell cannon of globular star clusters. It is also a privilege to give one of the first lectures in an impressive new auditorium. IUCAA has come a long way in the few months since the dedication ceremony last January and is clearly already well set up to provide both the facilities and the ambience needed for a successful research centre. Much of what follows is similar to a talk given at the IUCAA Dedication Symposium and so the next few sections will give only brief summaries of some basic observational data on globular clusters. The reader is referred to that earlier paper (Cannon 1993) for a more detailed account and further references. Some new results on the abundance spread among faint main sequence stars in one cluster are given here in section 6, while the final section consists of comments on the likely appearance of ‘prehistoric’ clusters, if such exist. 2. The significance of globular clusters Globular clusters are particularly important because their ages can be reasonably accurately determined and they turn out to be about the oldest objects known. They thus give information on the formation and early history of our Galaxy. More than that, they are so old that their ages are of cosmological significance: the best current estimates of their ages make them older than the age of the Universe in some cosmological models. In other words, they provide a constraint on permissible models. Recent technological advances, in particular the advent of Charge Coupled Device (CCD) detectors, have led to a dramatic improvement in the accuracy of photometry of faint stars in clusters. Thus it is possible to delineate the locus of stars in the colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) very much more precisely than previously. In particular, the location of the main sequence turn-off point, which is a direct measure of cluster age, can be much better determined. For a given cluster and a given set of theoretical isochrones, it is possible to determine the turn-off luminosity to better than 0.1 mag, and hence the age to better than 1 Gy. This however is only a sort of ‘internal’ accuracy; uncertainties in the transformation from observed to theoretical quantities (i.e., colour to temperature, magnitude to bolometric luminosity), in the abundances of some key elements, and in some of the input physics for the stellar models, mean that the absolute ages are not so well determined. In particular, it is difficult to be confident about the relative ages of clusters with different chemical composition; conversely, the uncertainties can be minimised by comparing clusters with very similar composition. One such pair of clusters is NGC 288 and NGC 362. Their overall metallicities, as measured by various parameters which essentially depend on the abundance of iron, are almost identical. Bolte (1989) and Green & Norris (1990) have indepen- dently obtained precise CMDs for both clusters, using CCDs. Both studies come to the same conclusion: the turn-off in NGC 288 is about 0.3 mag fainter than that in NGC 362, implying that NGC 288 is two to three billion years older. However, it is possible that a difference in the abundance of some hard-to-observe chemical element might be responsible for the observed shift in the turn-off point. A prime Globular clusters 3 suspect is oxygen, since it does affect the turnoff luminosity and it is known that itsabundance does not always vary in step with that of iron. 3. The determination of oxygen abundances Another recent technological advance had made it possible for the first time to measure reasonably accurate oxygen abundances in globular cluster stars. With a modern high dispersion spectrograph, such as the UCL coude echelle spectrograph (UCLES) on the AAT, it is possible to observe the oxygen line at 630nm in globular cluster red giants. Dickens et al. (1991) have used UCLES to observe samples of stars in NGC 288 and NGC 362. It is in fact not enough just to observe the oxygen line; it is also necessary to measure the strengths of molecular bands, such as those due to CN and CH, in order to determine the carbon and nitrogen abundances as well. The strength of the oxygen line depends on the C and Ν abundances, while the important parameter for the stellar interior models used to determine cluster ages is actually the combined C+N+O abundance. The abundances are determined by comparing the observed spectra with calcu- lated synthetic spectra. The result which Dickens et al. obtained was that all the stars they observed in both clusters have the same overall C+N+O abundance, to within the errors. They also confirmed that NGC 288 and NGC 362 have almost the same iron abundance. Thus their data eliminate oxygen variations as the cause of the difference between the two CMDs. 4. Cluster ages It thus seems that NGC 288 really is 2–3 Gyr older than NGC 362. There are a few other well-founded examples of pairs of clusters with similar abundances but different ages. There is also good evidence that there is very little spread in age within some other samples of clusters. However, it is not yet possible to determine the overall age distribution function, especially when clusters of very different abundance are included. The available data are consistent with the majority of Galactic globular clusters being virtually coeval but with a minority having significantly different ages. Supporting evidence for this picture comes from the morphology of cluster CMDs. It has long been recognised that the structure of the horizontal branch correlates with metallicity for most clusters, but that a few clusters are anomalous (the ‘second parameter’ problem). If the mean colour of the horizontal branch is taken to be a function of age, with the stars becoming bluer as age increases, it seems that most of the anomalous clusters are younger than the main sample in the Galaxy. Most of these ‘young’ globulars are outlying clusters which may have been captured when smaller galaxies were disrupted and merged with the Galaxy. It is a bit difficult to decide which of NGC 288 and NGC 362 is the ‘anomalous’ cluster; both have been classed as ‘second parameter clusters’ in the past, in opposite senses, but it seems likely that NGC 288 is an exceptionally old cluster (Cannon 1993). 4 Russell cannon An alternative view is that there is in fact a Gaussian spread of cluster ages, with dispersion around half a billion years and with NGC 288 and NGC 362 being close to opposite ends of the range. In any event, NGC 288 seems to be a particularly significant cluster in the cosmological context, since in either view it must be one of the oldest. 5. Abundance variations within clusters The classical assumption was that all stars in a given cluster have the same abun- dance. The very tightly defined CMDs for most well-observed clusters justify this assumption, at least so far as the iron group elements (which dominate opacity) are concerned, with a few exceptions of which the most notable is NGC 5139 (Omega Centauri). However, there are in fact large variations in the strengths of the CN bands in many clusters (Norris 1987). The questions which arise are: what is the origin of these variations, and do they have implications for age determinations? NGC 362 is one cluster with a large spread in CN band strength: NGC 288 shows virtually no spread.