The temperature distribution of horizontal branch stars: methods and first results

TL;DR

This paper develops methods to determine the temperature distribution of horizontal branch stars in globular clusters, applying them to M15, and finds a multimodal temperature distribution consistent with spectroscopic data.

Contribution

It introduces a robust approach using zero age HB color-Teff relations for effective temperature estimation and applies it to M15 to analyze its HB morphology.

Findings

M15's HB has a multimodal temperature distribution.

Majority of HB stars are below 20,000 K.

Temperature estimates agree with spectroscopic data.

Abstract

As part of a large project aimed at characterizing the ultraviolet (UV) properties of globular clusters, we present here a theoretical and observational analysis aimed at setting the framework for the determination of horizontal branch (HB) temperature distributions. Indeed this is a crucial information to understand the physical parameters shaping the HB morphology in globular clusters and to interpret the UV emission from unresolved stellar systems. We found that the use of zero age HB color-Teff relations is a robust way to derive effective temperatures of individual HB stars. We investigated the most suitable colors for temperature estimates, and the effect on the color-Teff relations of variations of the initial chemical composition, and of the evolution off the zero age horizontal branch. As a test case, we applied our color-Teff calibrations to the Galactic globular cluster M15. The photometry of M15 has been obtained with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board the HST. The HB of M15 turned out to have a multimodal distribution, with a main component peaked at Teff~8,000 K and confined below Teff~10,000 K. The second component is peaked at Teff~14,000 K and extends up to Teff~20,000 K. The vast majority (~95%) of the HB stars in M15 is below 20,000 K, in agreement with the lack of a well populated extreme HB observed in other metal-poor globular clusters. We also verified that the temperatures derived with our analysis are consistent with spectroscopic estimates available in the literature.