Abundance anomalies in galactic globular clusters - Looking for the stellar culprits

Abstract

Galactic globular cluster stars exhibit abundance patterns which are not shared by their field counterparts. It is clear from recent spectroscopic observations of GC turnoff stars that these abundance anomalies were already present in the gas from which the observed stars formed. This provides undisputed support to the so-called self-enrichment scenario according to which a large fraction of GC low-mass stars have formed from material processed through hydrogen-burning at high temperatures and then lost by more massive and faster evolving stars (and perhaps mixed with some original gas). Within this framework we present a new method to derive the Initial Mass Function of the polluter stars. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.