A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF EFFECTS OF STELLAR ROTATION, AGE SPREAD, AND BINARIES ON COLOR–MAGNITUDE DIAGRAMS WITH EXTENDED MAIN-SEQUENCE TURNOFFS

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stellar rotation, age spread, and binary stars are thought to be the three most possible causes of the peculiar color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of some star clusters, which exhibit extended main-sequence turnoffs (eMSTOs). The answer is far from clear. This paper studies the effects of the three above causes on the CMDs of star clusters systematically. A rapid stellar evolutionary code and a recently published database of rotational effects of single stars have been used, via an advanced stellar population synthesis technique. As a result, we find a similar result for rotation to recent works, which suggests that rotation is able to explain, at least partially, the eMSTOs of clusters, if clusters are not too old (<2.0 Gyr). In addition, an age spread of 200–500 Myr reproduces extended turnoffs for all clusters younger than 2.5 Gyr, in particular, for those younger than 2.2 Gyr. Age spread also results in extended red clumps (eRCs) for clusters younger than 0.5 Gyr. The younger the clusters, the clearer the eRC structures. Moreover, it is shown that binaries (including interactive binaries) affect the spread of MSTOs slightly for old clusters, but they can contribute to the eMSTOs of clusters younger than 0.5 Gyr. Our result suggests a possible way to disentangle the roles of stellar rotation and age spread, i.e., checking the existence of CMDs with both eMSTOs and eRCs in clusters younger than 0.5 Gyr.