Search for an Intrinsic Metallicity Spread in Old Globular Clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

We report for the first time on the magnitude of the intrinsic [Fe/H] spread among 10 old globular clusters (GCs) of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Such spreads are merely observed in approximately 5% of the Milky Way GCs and recently gained more attention in theoretical models of GC evolution. We derived metallicities with a typical precision of 0.05 dex ≤  σ [Fe/H] ≤ 0.20 dex for an average of 14 red giant branch stars per GC from Strömgren photometry. The respective, metallicity-sensitive indices have been calibrated to precise and accurate high-dispersion spectroscopy. For all clusters, we found null [Fe/H] spreads with a typical uncertainty of 0.04 dex, with the possible exception of NGC 1786 that shows an intrinsic dispersion of 0.07 ± 0.04 dex. The mean, observed standard deviation of the derived metallicities for nearly 40% of our GC sample amounted to smaller than 0.05 dex. At present, we cannot exclude the fact that the remaining GCs also have intrinsic Fe-abundance variations in excess of 0.05 dex, but in order to significantly detect those, the measurement errors on individual [Fe/H]-values would need to be lowered to the 0.03–0.07 dex level. These findings suggest, along with those from ages and light element abundances, that the LMC GCs studied here are similar to the majority of Galactic GCs.