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The ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. III. The Double Subgiant Branch of NGC 1851

2008; IOP Publishing; Volume: 673; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/524188

1538-4357

A. P. Milone, L. R. Bedin, G. Piotto, Jay Anderson, Ivan R. King, Ata Sarajedini, Aaron Dotter, Brian Chaboyer, A. Marín-Franch, Steven R. Majewski, A. Aparicio, M. Hempel, Nathaniel Paust, I. Neill Reid, Alfred Rosenberg, M. H. Siegel,

Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies

Photometry with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST ACS) reveals that the subgiant branch (SGB) of the globular cluster NGC 1851 splits into two well-defined branches. If the split is due only to an age effect, the two SGBs would imply two star formation episodes separated by ~1 Gyr. We discuss other anomalies in NGC 1851 that could be interpreted in terms of a double stellar population. Finally, we compare the case of NGC 1851 with the other two globulars known to host multiple stellar populations, and show that all three clusters differ in several important respects.