A Far‐Ultraviolet Survey of 47 Tucanae. I. Imaging

Abstract

We present results from the imaging portion of a far-ultraviolet (FUV) survey of the core of 47 Tucanae. We have detected 767 FUV sources, 527 of which have optical counterparts in archival HST/WFPC2 images of the same field. Most of our FUV sources are main-sequence (MS) turn-off stars near the detection limit of our survey. However, the FUV/optical color-magnitude diagram (CMD) also reveals 19 blue stragglers (BSs), 17 white dwarfs (WDs) and 16 cataclysmic variable (CV) candidates. The BSs lie on the extended cluster MS, and four of them are variable in the FUV data. The WDs occupy the top of the cluster cooling sequence, down to an effective temperature of T_{eff} \simeq 20,000 K. Our FUV source catalog probably contains many additional, cooler WDs without optical counterparts. Finally, the CV candidates are objects between the WD cooling track and the extended cluster MS. Four of the CV candidates are previously known or suspected cataclysmics. All of these are bright and variable in the FUV. Another CV candidate is associated with the semi-detached binary system V36 that was recently found by Albrow et al. (2001). V36 has an orbital period of 0.4 or 0.8 days, blue optical colors and is located within 1 arcsec of a Chandra x-ray source. A few of the remaining CV candidates may represent chance superpositions or SMC interlopers, but at least half are expected to be real cluster members with peculiar colors. However, only a few of these CV candidates are possible counterparts to Chandra x-ray sources. Thus it is not yet clear which, if any, of them are true CVs, rather than non-interacting MS/WD binaries or Helium WDs.