Potassium abundances in multiple stellar populations of the globular cluster NGC 4833

TL;DR

This study investigates potassium abundances in NGC 4833, revealing a wide spread and correlations with other elements, indicating high-temperature self-enrichment processes in the cluster's multiple stellar populations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of potassium abundances in NGC 4833, linking chemical variations to high-temperature proton-capture nucleosynthesis in globular clusters.

Findings

Wide spread of K abundances anti-correlated with Mg and O.

K abundances correlated with Na, Ca, and Sc.

Chemical patterns suggest high-temperature self-enrichment in the cluster.

Abstract

NGC 4833 is a metal-poor Galactic globular cluster (GC) whose multiple stellar populations present an extreme chemical composition. The Na-O anti-correlation is quite extended, which is in agreement with the long tail on the blue horizontal branch, and the large star-to-star variations in the [Mg/Fe] ratio span more than 0.5 dex. Recently, significant excesses of Ca and Sc with respect to field stars of a similar metallicity were also found, signaling the production of species forged in H-burning at a very high temperature in the polluters of the first generation in this cluster. Since an enhancement of potassium is also expected under these conditions, we tested this scenario by analysing intermediate resolution spectra of 59 cluster stars including the K I resonance line at 7698.98 A. We found a wide spread of K abundances, anti-correlated to Mg and O abundances, as previously also observed in NGC 2808. The abundances of K are found to be correlated to those of Na, Ca, and Sc. Overall, this chemical pattern confirms that NGC 4833 is one of the relatively few GCs where the self-enrichment from first generation polluters occurred at such high temperatures that proton-capture reactions were able to proceed up to heavier species such as K and possibly Ca. The spread in K observed in GCs appears to be a function of a linear combination of cluster total luminosity and metallicity, as other chemical signatures of multiple stellar populations in GCs.