Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2000-09-06
Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 324 (2001) 213
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS
Scientific paper
We study the correlations between the distribution of stars on the horizontal branch (HB), the HB morphology, with some other properties of globular clusters (GCs) in a large sample of GCs. We strengthen previous results that a general correlation exists only between HB morphology and metallicity. Correlations with other properties, e.g., central density and core radius, exist only for GCs within a narrow metallicity range. We conjecture that the lack of correlations with present properties of GCs (besides metallicity), is because the variation of the HB morphologies between GCs having similar metallicities is caused by a process, or processes, whose effect was determined at the formation time of GCs. This process (or processes) is historically termed the `second parameter', metallicity being the `first parameter'. We then argue that the `planet second parameter' model, where the presence of planets and to a lesser degree brown dwarfs and low mass main sequence stars is the `second parameter', fits this conjecture.
Hadar Ron
Soker Noam
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