The helium spread among the stars of 47Tuc

Abstract

AbstractWe show that the current data of the HB branch of 47 Tuc show a particular feature that cannot be explained if a single population with an unique mechanism of mass loss is considered. We find that a spread in helium abundance among the stars is necessary, of ~0.02. We indicate that the same variation in helium is present among the sub giant branch stars and suggest that is responsible of the spread in luminosity of the bright sub giant branch, while only a small part of the second generation is characterized by C+N+O increase and gives the faint sub giant branch.