Browsing by Author "Federici, L."

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    Looking for building blocks of the Galactic halo: variable stars in the Fornax, Bootes I, Canes Venatici II dwarfs and in NGC 2419
    (2010) Greco, Claudia; Clementini, Gisella; Held, E. V.; Poretti, E.; Catelan, Márcio; Federici, L.; Maio, M.; Gullieuszik, M.; Ripepi, V.; Dall'Ora, M.; Di Fabrizio, L.; Kinemuchi, K.; Di Crescienzo, M.; Marconi, M.; Musella, I.; Pritzl, B.; Rest, A.; De Lee, N.; Smith, H.
    Λ cold-dark-matter hierarchical models of galaxy formation suggest that the halo of the Milky Way (MW) has been assembled, at least in part, through accretion of protogalactic fragments partially resembling the present-day dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellites of the MW. Investigation of the stellar populations of the MW's globular clusters (GCs) and dSph companions can thus provide excellent tests to infer the dominant Galaxy-formation scenario, whether merger/accretion or cloud collapse. Pulsating variable stars offer a very powerful tool in this context, since variables of different types allow tracing the different stellar generations in a galaxy and to reconstruct the galaxy's star-formation history and assembly back to the first epochs of galaxy formation. In particular, the RR Lyrae stars, belonging to the old population (t > 10 Gyr), witnessed the epoch of halo formation, and thus hold a crucial role to identify the MW satellites that may have contributed to build up the Galactic halo. In the MW, most GCs with an RR Lyrae population sharply divide into two distinct groups (Oosterhoff types I and II) based on the mean periods and relative proportion of fundamental-mode (RRab) and first-overtone (RRc) RR Lyrae stars. On the other hand, the Galactic-halo field RR Lyrae stars show a dominance of Oosterhoff I properties. Here, we investigate the Oosterhoff properties of a number of different stellar systems, starting from relatively undisturbed dwarf galaxies (the Fornax dSph and its globular clusters), through distorted and tidally disrupting ones (the Bootes and Canes Venatici II dSphs), to possible final relics of the disruption process (the Galactic globular cluster NGC 2419). We are addressing the crucial question of whether the RR Lyrae pulsation properties in these systems conform to the Oosterhoff dichotomy characterizing the MW variables. If they do not, the Galaxy's halo cannot have been assembled by dSph-like protogalactic fragments resembling the present-day dSph companions of the MW. We have reduced and combined long time series from different telescopes, both ground- and space-based. Variable stars have been detected with image-subtraction techniques using the package isis2.1. Periods, amplitudes and Oosterhoff type for all variable stars, as well as color-magnitude diagrams of the stellar populations are discussed for each stellar cluster analyzed....
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    RR Lyrae stars in M31 globular clusters: B514
    (2008) Contreras, R.; Federici, L.; Clementini, G.; Cacciari, C.; Merighi, R.; Kinemuchi, K.; Catelan , Marcio; Fusi Pecci, F.; Marconi, M.; Pritzl, B.; Smith, H.
    We present preliminary results of a variable star search in the metal-poor globular cluster B514 of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), based on Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and Advanced Camera for Surveys observations. A large number of RR Lyrae stars have been identified for the first time in a globular cluster of M31. The average period of the RR Lyrae variables (< Pab > = 0.58 days and < Pc > = 0.35 days, for fundamental-mode and first-overtone pulsators, respectively) and the position in the period-amplitude diagram both suggest that B514 is likely an Oosterhoff I cluster, contrary to the general behaviour of the metal-poor globular clusters in the Milky Way, which show instead Oosterhoff type II pulsation properties....
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    The horizontal branch morphology of M 31 globular clusters Extreme second parameter effect in outer halo clusters
    (2012) Perina, S.; Bellazzini, M.; Buzzoni, A.; Cacciari, C.; Federici, L.; Pecci, F. Fusi; Galleti, S.
    We use deep, high quality color magnitude diagrams obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope to compute a simplified version of the Mironov index (SMI; B/B+R) to parametrize the horizontal branch (HB) morphology for 23 globular clusters in the M 31 galaxy (Sample A), all located in the outer halo at projected distances between 10 kpc and 100 kpc. This allows us to compare them with their Galactic counterparts, for which we estimated the SMI exactly in the same way, in the SMI vs. [Fe/H] plane. We find that the majority of the considered M 31 clusters lie in a significantly different locus, in this plane, with respect to Galactic clusters lying at any distance from the center of the Milky Way. In particular they have redder HB morphologies at a given metallicity, or, in other words, clusters with the same SMI value are approximate to 0.4 dex more metal rich in the Milky Way than in M 31. We discuss the possible origin of this difference and we conclude that the most likely explanation is that many globular clusters in the outer halo of M 31 formed approximate to 1-2 Gyr later than their counterparts in the outer halo of the Milky Way, while differences in the cluster-to-cluster distribution of He abundance of individual stars may also play a role. The analysis of another sample of 25 bright M 31 clusters (eighteen of them with M-V <= -9.0, Sample B), whose SMI estimates are much more uncertain as they are computed on shallow color magnitude diagrams, suggests that extended blue HB tails can be relatively frequent among the most massive M 31 globular clusters, possibly hinting at the presence of multiple populations.