The tricky galactic cluster NGC2420

Details The tricky galactic cluster NGC2420 The tricky galactic cluster NGC2420

2001-12-13

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0112307v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5 pages, 6 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XLIV National Congress of the SAIt (Monteporzio, Apr 2000), Mem SAIt

Scientific paper

We discuss the CM diagram of the galactic cluster NGC2420 to the light of current theoretical predictions. By relying on the most recent updating of the physical input, one finds too luminous theoretical He burning stars together with the evidence for a misfitting of the lower portion of the MS. Moreover one finds two well known overshooting signatures, as given by i) the large extension of the "hook" preceding the overall contraction gap, and ii) the scarcity of stars just at the end of the gap. We show that the overluminosity of He burning stars appears as a constant prediction of models based on updated physics, whereas alternative assumptions about the Equation of State can account for the MS fitting. Moreover, due to the scarse statistical significance of the observational sample, one finds that overshooting signatures can be present also in canonical (without overshooting) predictions. We conclude that, unfortunately, NGC2420 does not keep the promise to be of help in costraining the actual dimensions of convective cores in H burning MS stars, suggesting in the meantime that using clumping He burning stars as theoretical standard candle is at least a risky procedure. In this context the need for firmer constraints about the reddening of galactic clusters is shortly discussed.

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