The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic globular clusters - XI. The horizontal branch in NGC 6388 and NGC 6441
Salaris, M.; Di Criscienzo, M.; Anderson, J.; Milone, A. P.; Marino, A. F.; D'Antona, F.; Tailo, M.; Ventura, P.; Bedin, L. R.; Piotto, G.; Nardiello, D.; Vesperini, E.; Brown, T. M.; Cassisi, S.; Bellini, A.
Italy, Australia, United States, United Kingdom
Abstract
The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy survey of Galactic globular clusters (GC) is characterizing many different aspects of their multiple stellar populations. The `Grundahl-jump' (G-jump) is a discontinuity in ultraviolet brightness of blue horizontal branch (HB) stars, signalling the onset of radiative metal levitation. The HB Legacy data confirmed that the G-jump is located at the same Teff (≃11 500 K) in nearly all clusters. The only exceptions are the metal-rich clusters NGC 6388 and NGC 6441, where the G-jump occurs at Teff ≃ 13-14 000 K. We compute synthetic HB models based on new evolutionary tracks including the effect of helium diffusion, and approximately accounting for the effect of metal levitation in a stable atmosphere. Our models show that the G-jump location depends on the interplay between the time-scale of diffusion and the time-scale of the evolution in the Teff range 11 500 K≲Teff≲14 000 K. The G-jump becomes hotter than 11 500 K only for stars that have, in this Teff range, a helium mass fraction Y ≳ 0.35. Similarly high Y values are also consistent with the modelling of the HB in NGC 6388 and NGC 6441. In these clusters, we predict that a significant fraction of HB stars show helium in their spectra above 11 500 K, and full helium settling should only be found beyond the hotter G-jump.