The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic globular clusters. - XI. The horizontal branch in NGC 6388 and NGC 6441

Abstract

The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy survey of Galactic globular clusters (GC) is characterizing many different aspects of their multiple stellar populations. The 'Grundahl-jump' (G-jump) is a discontinuity in ultraviolet brightness of blue horizontal branch (HB) stars, signalling the onset of radiative metal levitation. The HB Legacy data confirmed that the G-jump is located at the same Teff (≃11 500 K) in nearly all clusters. The only exceptions are the metal-rich clusters NGC 6388 and NGC 6441, where the G-jump occurs at Teff ≃ 13-14 000 K. We compute synthetic HB models based on new evolutionary tracks including the effect of helium diffusion, and approximately accounting for the effect of metal levitation in a stable atmosphere. Our models show that the G-jump location depends on the interplay between the time-scale of diffusion and the time-scale of the evolution in the Teff range 11 500 K≲Teff≲14 000 K. The G-jump becomes hotter than 11 500 K only for stars that have, in this Teff range, a helium mass fraction Y ≳ 0.35. Similarly high Y values are also consistent with the modelling of the HB in NGC 6388 and NGC 6441. In these clusters, we predict that a significant fraction of HB stars show helium in their spectra above 11 500 K, and full helium settling should only be found beyond the hotter G-jump Show more