# An Internal Second Parameter Problem in the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

## 1 Introduction

The Sculptor dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy was the first Galactic dSph to be identified (Shapley 1938) and has a long observational history. Its variables have been tabulated by a large number of studies (Baade & Hubble 1939; Thackeray 1950; van Agt 1978; Goldsmith 1993, Hereafter G93; Kałuz̀ny et al. 1995, hereafter K95), and the period distribution of RR Lyrae stars suggests a metallicity spread (G93, K95). While a range of abundances is generally accepted, impressions of the Sculptor horizontal branch (HB) morphology outside of the instability strip have varied depending on photometric depth, field size and filter systems employed to construct the color magnitude diagram (CMD). Kunkel & Demers’ (1977, KD77) Sculptor CMD (324 stars to $`V=20.6`$) yielded 43 red HB (RHB) out of 49 HB stars and a deficit of stars with $`BV<+0.3`$ as well as a red giant branch (RGB) well described by a metal-poor population ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.9`$). Norris & Bessell (1978) re-analyzed the CMD in combination with two spectra to argue for a Sculptor metallicity spread of $`2.2[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.5`$, and Smith & Dopita (1983) confirmed an inhomogeneous metallicity distribution function (MDF) via narrow-band photometry. Da Costa’s (1984, D84) deep, but small area photometry to the Sculptor MSTO did not provide strong constraints on either the HB or RGB; however, it did show an abundance spread similar to previous results (confirmed by Da Costa 1988) and a predominantly red HB (7 of 10 HB stars). The conclusion of these studies was that Sculptor is a “second parameter ($`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P) object” that shows a rather red global HB for its mean abundance (D84).

More recently, however, Schweitzer et al. (1995, SCMS) produced a CMD with 1043 stars that reveals a prominent blue HB (BHB) with more stars than KD77 and D84. In the first wide-field, CCD survey of Sculptor, K95 reported the usual metallicity spread based on the RGB (as did SCMS), but also substantiated the large BHB population and derived a more moderate Sculptor HB morphology index of $`(BR)/(B+V+R)=0.15`$ (see also the Grebel et al. 1994 CMD). Because their $`VI`$ photometry of $`>6000`$ stars with $`V<21.5`$ covered a much larger area than previous results, K95’s significantly increased BHB:RHB ratio suggests differences in the spatial distribution of BHB and RHB stars. This might be due to abundance gradients in the dSph. However, since the most metal rich population in Sculptor’s RGB has $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.5`$, which would normally give a uniform to blue HB, the variation in the RHB population must be due to spatial variation in the $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P effect.

In this letter, we present $`BV`$ photometry of the Sculptor dSph galaxy. We find the usual evidence for RGB stars ranging from metal-poor ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.5`$) to very metal-poor ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]2.3`$); however, on the basis of two distinct HBs and two distinct RGB bumps, Sculptor’s MDF may be better characterized as bimodal. This bimodality gives rise to one population with a $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P effect, and a second one with likely very little HB $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P. Differences in radial distributions for these two populations can account for the variation in HB morphology within Sculptor and among previous surveys of this galaxy.

## 2 Observations and Reduction

We observed Sculptor on UT 23 July and 1–2 August, 1991 with the Las Campanas 1-m Swope telescope using the thinned, $`1024^2`$ TEK2 CCD camera. Five overlapping, 10$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$4 wide pointings were arranged in a 2$`\times `$2 grid with a center frame overlapping the other four to lock together the photometry. Each field was typically observed with one $`B`$ and $`V`$ exposure of 1800 and 900 sec length, respectively. The data were reduced with the IRAF package CCDRED and photometered with the DAOPHOT II and ALLFRAME programs (Stetson 1987, 1994). Detections were matched using DAOMASTER and then calibrated to observed Graham (1982) standard stars using our own code. This code compares calibrated magnitudes of stars in common on different CCD frames and determines minor frame-to-frame systematic errors (e.g., due to shuttering errors, transient transparency changes, errors in the photometric transformation). Because of photometric conditions, the derived mean residuals for each frame ($`0.1`$ mag on the basis of $`689`$ comparison stars) were used as offsets and applied iteratively with new color determinations until convergence. Our resulting photometric precision is $`(\sigma _B,\sigma _V)=(0.05,0.05)`$ mag at the HB.

## 3 Horizontal Branch

Our $`(BV,V)_0`$ (Figure 1) and $`(BV,B)_0`$ (not shown) CMDs show an HB that appears to be kinked over the RR Lyrae gap. All tests of the photometry pipeline have shown this “kink” to be real, and a hint of this HB “kink” can be seen in KD77. Similarly kinked HBs have been noted previously in the CMDs of some “bimodal” Galactic globular clusters (GGC), e.g., NGC 6229 (Borissova et al. 1997), NGC 2808 (Ferraro et al. 1990), and NGC 1851 (Walker 1992), to which the Sculptor CMD bears some resemblance. Indeed, our derived $`B:V:R`$ (blue:variable:red HB) ratio of (0.42:0.19:0.39) resembles those of bimodal GGCs (see Borissova et al. 1997 for a summary). Stetson et al. (1996) make a poignant comparison of the bimodal NGC 1851 CMD to those of the similar metallicity, “$`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P GGC pair” NGC 288 and NGC 362; that NGC 1851 has both an RHB like NGC 362 and a BHB like NGC 288 suggests that NGC 1851 has an internal $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P problem. Stetson et al. use this fact to argue as unlikely that the $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P effect is due to differences in age, helium abundance or \[CNO/Fe\] within NGC 1851. Despite the similarities of our Sculptor HB to the HBs of bimodal GGCs, there are two key reasons why the Stetson et al. analysis does not apply here: (1) From the RGB width we know that Sculptor has an abundance spread. (2) There is no a priori reason to assume that all of the stars in Sculptor are coeval. Bearing this in mind we now explore the origin of the bimodality of the Sculptor HB.

The $`V`$ magnitude difference from the red edge of the Sculptor BHB to the blue edge of the RHB is $`0.15\pm 0.02`$ mag. If the bimodality is completely due to differences in \[Fe/H\], typical values for $`dM_V/d[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$ suggest an \[Fe/H\] difference of 0.5 to 1.0 dex. This is consistent with reported \[Fe/H\] spreads from fitting isochrones to the Sculptor RGB.

The situation is, however, more complex because we are comparing HB stars at different colors, and both the luminosity of the theoretical ZAHB (zero-age-HB) and bolometric correction vary with position along the HB. Moreover, the HB is strongly affected by the oxygen abundance. At a constant core mass ($`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$) increasing \[O/Fe\] increases $`L_{\mathrm{HB}}`$. However increasing \[O/Fe\] also leads to a decrease in $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$. All other things being equal, a decrease in $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ leads to a decrease in $`L_{\mathrm{HB}}`$. The net result is that the ZAHB variation with \[O/Fe\] can be rather complex. In the Galaxy it is generally thought that for metallicities appropriate for Sculptor, \[O/Fe\] is constant with a value in the range +0.3–0.5. There is no reason to assume that Sculptor has undergone the same chemical enrichment history as the Galaxy so we consider all $`0.0[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]+0.5`$ possible. Most recent HB models have an assumed \[O/Fe\], \[Fe/H\] relation. The only available models that allow us to explore the composition parameters independently are those of Rood (unpublished). To convert $`\mathrm{log}L`$ and $`\mathrm{log}T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ to $`M_V`$ and $`BV`$ we use the results of Kurucz (1979) and Bell & Gustaffson (1978) blended to reproduce observed HBs of GGCs smoothly. Throughout this paper, we assume $`(mM)_0=19.71`$ and $`E(BV)=0.02`$ (K95) for Sculptor.

Figure 2 shows the observed CMD of the Sculptor HB with superimposed ZAHBs terminated at the red end at a mass of 0.85$`M_{}`$with a cross mark indicating a mass of 0.80$`M_{}`$. These are roughly the maximum possible masses for 12 and 15 Gyr populations, respectively. Since all stars undergo some mass loss the ZAHB population will not actually reach these two points. Evolution and observational scatter will carry some stars redward, but for practical purposes the end of the ZAHB should mark the redward extent of the HB.

We start with the hypothesis that the Sculptor BHB is a low metallicity population and the RHB a higher metallicity population, both consistent with the spread of the RGB. The fairly uniform distribution across the RGB suggests comparable numbers in each group. The size of the observational error would obscure obvious bimodality on the RGB.

The BHB can be fit reasonably with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.3`$ and $`0.0[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]+0.5`$. Indeed, the BHB rather resembles that of the low metallicity GGC M92 (see Figure 1). The RHB can be fit with oxygen enhanced models with $`1.9[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.5`$. The odd behavior of the ZAHB level with \[Fe/H\] for the $`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]=+0.5`$ ZAHBs is due to approximations used for $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$. Independently of such modeling details, one can expect the variation of ZAHB level with \[Fe/H\] to be less for oxygen enhanced models than for scaled solar abundances. The models with $`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]=0.0`$ cannot fit the RHB: at $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.9`$ the ZAHB does not extend far enough to the red; at $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.5`$ the level of the ZAHB is too low.

One could conceivably produce the observed bimodality using one composition with $`1.9[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.5`$ and $`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]=+0.5`$. Such a mono-compositional bimodality is observed in GGCs but modeling it requires the ad hoc introduction of bimodality in some underlying parameter (Catelan et al. 1998). However, in Sculptor a composition spread is observed, and a bimodal composition is quite natural, e.g., arising from two bursts of star formation. Hence, it seems undesirable to us to discard the “natural explanation” in favor of the yet to be determined mechanism that produces bimodal HBs in GGCs.

It is clear from the $`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]=+0.5`$ ZAHB (Figure 2a) that even if most of the low metallicity population is found on the BHB, some could be found in the RR Lyrae strip and on the RHB. We suspect that this is a small fraction of the low metallicity population, because the red end of the BHB veers away from the ZAHB suggesting that the ZAHB is populated only for $`(BV)_00.15`$. In analogy to M92 we suspect that $`90`$% of the low metallicity population is found on the BHB and that its age is similar to that of M92.

Similarly, from Figure 2 we see that the higher metallicity population could contaminate the BHB. The RHB population does drop as one approaches the RR Lyrae strip. But there is precedent from the bimodal HB GGCs that such a population could increase further to the blue. There is reason to think this is not true for Sculptor. First, if there is significant high metallicity contamination of the BHB, where are the low metallicity stars we infer must be present from the RGB spread? Second, the BHB morphology is more like that of M92 than the blue-HB-tails of clusters with higher metallicity–M13, NGC 288, etc. These arguments in themselves are not compelling, but fit the overall scenario we develop here.

Normal GGCs with the metallicity we suggest for the Sculptor RHB have uniform HBs. This means that the Sculptor high metallicity population suffers from a “too red” $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P problem like, e.g., GGCs NGC 362 and NGC 7006 and the extreme halo cluster Pal 14. While the case for age as the $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P in GGCs has been hard to establish (e.g., Stetson et al. 1996; Catelan et al. 1998; VandenBerg 1998; but see counter views by Chaboyer et al. 1996, Sarajedini et al. 1997), there is good reason to think that a higher metallicity population in a low density system like Sculptor might be younger. Thus, we hypothesize that the RHB arises from a population several Gyr younger than the BHB. Indeed, D84 has suggested multiple age components ($`\delta (\mathrm{age})3`$ Gyr) from his study of turnoff stars.

If bimodal, Sculptor’s two HB populations probably overlap significantly in the instability strip. The distribution of RR Lyrae periods in Sculptor (G93, K95) shows a large range, consistent with a large spread in metallicity. The periods of RRab stars at the blue fundamental edge of the instability strip (those with the shortest periods) are well correlated with the metallicity (Sandage 1993a). In Sculptor, the shortest period RRab (ignoring two stars with very discrepant periods) has a period of 0.474 days (K95), implying a metallicity of $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.6`$. While the red fundamental edge is not as useful a metallicity indicator, the existence of RRab stars with $`P0.8`$ days indicates the presence of another population with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]<2.0`$. In addition, G93 and K95 both note a correlation of average magnitude with period in Sculptor RRab stars. Because $`M_V`$ is a function of $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$, the spread in $`M_V`$ also implies a metallicity spread. The intensity weighted average $`V`$ magnitude for the majority of the RRab stars lies in the range $`20.1<V<20.25`$ (K95), or $`0.24<M_V<0.64`$, which corresponds to $`2.3<[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]<1.3`$ (Sandage 1993b).

## 4 Red Giant Branch

Our analysis so far points to a bimodality of populations in the Sculptor HB. However, such bimodality is also suggested in the giant branch, where two distinct RGB bumps can be seen (Figure 1): one near $`(BV,V)_0=(0.8,19.3)`$ and one near $`(0.8,20.0)`$. The former RGB bump lies toward the blue side of the RGB, near the expected locus for metal poor stars, while the latter RGB bump lies toward the red side of the RGB, near the expected locus for more metal rich stars. To illustrate the differences, we fit a mean RGB locus to the entire Sculptor RGB, divide the RGB in half, and plot (Figure 3) RGB luminosity functions for all stars within $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)0.125`$ left and right of the mean RGB locus. We isolate the redward RGB bump at $`V_020.0`$. The blueward bump is less clearly defined but probably is $`19.0V19.4`$. The extreme magnitude differences between the RGB bumps again argues for a metallicity separation of order a dex. We can use the absolute magnitudes of the RGB bumps to obtain a global metallicity (\[M/H\]) for the two bump populations (Ferraro et al. 1999): Using $`(mM)_0=19.71`$ (K95), we find \[M/H\] $`2.1`$ and $`1.3`$. Ferraro et al. (1999, Figure 11a) also give relations for the RGB bump dependence on the magnitude difference between the bump and HB. If we adopt $`V=20.2`$ for the height of the BHB population and assign this to the metal-poor RGB, we obtain $`V_{bump}V_{HB}0.9`$; this implies an abundance $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]2.4`$, on the Zinn (1985) scale. For the RHB population, if we adopt $`V_{HB}=20.35`$ and assign to this the other RGB bump, we obtain $`V_{bump}V_{HB}=0.35`$; this is the difference expected for $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.6`$.

The presence of the distinct RGB bumps, their estimated $`M_V`$, and their location relative to the HB suggest a bimodal MDF with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]2.3`$ and $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.6`$.

## 5 Discussion

From analysis of the RGB and HB, a consistent scenario can be assembled. In Figure 1 we show representative RGB, AGB, and HB fiducials for the metal-poor ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.23`$), BHB cluster M92 and the less metal poor ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.44`$) $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P cluster Pal 14. These clusters bracket the Sculptor RGB, while each cluster separately approximates the BHB and RHB, respectively. Apart from the fact that Pal 14 may be a little metal-rich by a few 0.1 dex, the two clusters provide a reasonable bimodal paradigm for the Sculptor MDF.

Our bimodal interpretation of Sculptor differs somewhat from previous studies that argue for an abundance spread. It should be noted that a true bimodality in the RGB of Sculptor in the form of two distinct RGB sequences would be masked somewhat by observational scatter and the superposition of the asymptotic giant branch for the more metal rich population. The presence of two distinct RGB bumps, rather than a slanting RGB bump “continuum,” is evidence for bimodality in Sculptor. We note that a suggestion of bimodality (or trimodality) was made previously by Grebel et al. (1994).

In §1 we argued that disparate HB morphologies found among different surveys of the Sculptor CMD derived from radial differences in global HB morphology. Figure 4 provides evidence that this is the case: The global HB index increases by 0.4 from the center to the $`500\mathrm{"}`$ radius accessible with our catalogue. We have argued for a bimodal MDF. Accordingly, the radial gradient in Figure 4 is not likely due to a radial abundance gradient, or the gradual diminishing of a $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P effect. Rather, the cumulative evidence suggests that the HB radial dependence is due to changes in proportions of two nearly mono-metallic populations with radius. Indeed, the relative densities of the blue:red half of the RGB track those of the BHB:RHB very well (Figure 4). The spatial distribution of the \[BHB, blue RGB, metal-poor\] population appears to be more extended than that of the \[RHB, red RGB, less metal poor\] population, which shows a higher core concentration. Spatial differences in the Sculptor HB were suggested previously by Light (1988) and Da Costa et al. (1996) and are explored further by Hurley-Keller et al. (1999). Da Costa et al. (1996) also point out radial HB index gradients (with a similar sense) in the Leo II and And I dSphs, and adopt the same interpretation of mixing variations in bimodal HB populations.

The existence of bimodal, $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$$`+`$ non-$`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P populations within dSphs would be significant since, unlike bimodal GGCs such as NGC 1851, in dSphs it is (now) entirely plausible to consider multiple star formation bursts with age as the $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P. In Sculptor’s case, it is likely that the $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]2.3`$ population formed in an earlier, more extended burst. If the presence of these two distinct populations is born out, the (relatively nearby) Sculptor dSph could well prove to be a Rosetta stone of the HB and the adamantine $`2^{\mathrm{nd}}`$P question.

We thank Eva Grebel for helpful discussions and the referee for useful suggestions.

## 6 Captions

fig. 1. – $`(BV,V)_0`$ CMD for the Sculptor dwarf galaxy with overlaid fiducials for M92 (dashed line; from Sandage, 1970) and Pal 14 (solid line; from Holland & Harris 1992). We adopt cluster distance moduli and reddenings from Harris (1996) and Holland & Harris (1992), respectively. The right panel highlights the RGB and red bump region.

fig. 2. – Fits of model ZAHBs to the HB of Sculptor. Panel (a) shows oxygen enhanced ($`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]=+0.5`$) models, and (b) shows models with solar $`[\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{Fe}]`$. In each panel, the solid line shows the model with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.3`$, the dashed line shows $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.9`$, and the dotted line shows $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.5`$. The ZAHBs are terminated at the red end at a mass of 0.85$`M_{}`$and a cross mark indicates a mass of 0.80$`M_{}`$(see text).

fig. 3. – Differential (right ordinate) and cumulative (left ordinate) RGB luminosity functions for stars within 0.125 mag in $`(BV)_0`$ color to either the blue (dot-dash curves) or red (solid curves) of the mean RGB locus. The dot-dash curves are offset vertically by $`+1.0`$ for the cumulative and by $`+80`$ for the differential luminosity function. Breaks in the slope of the cumulative distributions (indicated by thin solid lines) point to locations of RGB bumps, marked by vertical lines.

fig. 4. – Radial dependence of HB (filled circles) and RGB (open circles) morphology from our catalogue. The RR Lyrae counts in the same areas are from K95. The values for $`(B:V:R)`$ for the HB and $`B+R`$ for the RGB in each annulus are given for each point.