An extended main sequence turn-off in the Small Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC411

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of an extended main sequence turn-off in the star cluster NGC411 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, revealing similarities with NGC419 and providing insights into their star formation histories.

Contribution

First detection of an eMSTO in NGC411, comparing its properties with NGC419, and analyzing implications for star formation episodes in SMC clusters.

Findings

NGC411 shows an eMSTO similar to NGC419.

Both clusters are nearly coeval in initial star formation.

NGC411 has a less prominent secondary red clump.

Abstract

Based on new observations with the Wide Field Camera 3 onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, we report the discovery of an extended main sequence turn-off (eMSTO) in the intermediate-age star cluster NGC411. This is the second case of an eMSTO being identified in a star cluster belonging to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), after NGC419. Despite the present masses of these two SMC clusters differ by a factor of 4, the comparison between their colour--magnitude diagrams (CMD) shows striking similarities, especially regarding the shape of their eMSTOs. The loci of main CMD features are so similar that they can be well described, in a first approximation, by the same mean metallicity, distance and extinction. NGC411, however, presents merely a trace of secondary red clump as opposed to its prominent manifestation in NGC419. This could be due either to the small number statistics in NGC411, or by the star formation in NGC419 having continued for 60 Myr longer than in NGC411. Under the assumption that the eMSTOs are caused by different generations of stars at increasing age, both clusters are nearly coeval in their first episodes of star formation. The initial period of star formation, however, is slightly more marked in NGC419 than in NGC411. We discuss these findings in the context of possible scenarios for the origin of eMSTOs.