# The Spectra of Main Sequence Stars in Galactic Globular Clusters II. CH and CN Bands in M71Based on observations obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the California Institute of Technology and the University of California

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The major issue I intend to explore in this series of papers is that of star-to-star variations in abundances within a single globular cluster at and below the level of the main sequence turnoff. In the first paper of this series (Cohen 1999), I presented an overview of this subject and the historical background for the present work which began with the study of the giants in M13 by Suntzeff (1981). To summarize very briefly, star-to-star variations in several light elements, particularly C and N, are seen on the giant and subgiant branches of many globular clusters. The behavior of these variations within those globular clusters studied in most detail are in many cases consistent with what is expected for mixing as the explanation for most of the observed variations. 47 Tuc was the only galactic globular cluster studied at the level of the main sequence, where mixing should not yet have occurred, yet Canon et al. (1998) and references therein find detectable variations in the CH and CN bands for main sequence stars in 47 Tuc, and these variations are anti-correlated.

Globular cluster main sequence stars should not yet have synthesized through internal nuclear burning any elements heavier than He (and Li and Be) and hence will be essentially unpolluted by the internal nuclear burning and production of various heavy elements that occur in later stages of stellar evolution. Theory predicts that these stars are unaffected by gravitational settling and that their surfaces should be a fair representation of the gas from which the globular cluster formed. Thus the persistence of variations in C and N to such low luminosities in 47 Tuc (Cannon et al. 1998) and references therein) is surprising. The major recent reviews in this area are those of Kraft (1994) and Briley, Hesser & Smith (1994), while the more general reviews of McWilliam (1997) and of Pinnsoneault (1997) are also relevant.

In paper 1 I analyzed spectra of 50 stars at or below the main sequence turnoff in M13. I did not find any detectable variation in the strength of the CN or CH features in this sample. However, M13 is a quite metal poor globular cluster, and hence here I present an analysis of the spectra of 79 stars on the main sequence of M71, a globular cluster with metallicity comparable to that of 47 Tuc.

## 2 THE SAMPLE OF STARS

M71 was chosen as the second cluster in this study because of its metallicity (Cohen 1983) and because it is nearby, hence the turnoff stars will be relatively bright. This globular cluster is located at galactic latitude bII = $`4.6^{}`$ and has a reddening $`E(BV)=0.27`$ mag (Reed, Hesser & Shawl 1988).

Short exposure images in $`B`$ and $`R`$ were taken with Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (Oke et al. 1995) at the Keck Observatory centered on the cluster. Photometry was obtained with DAOPHOT (Stetson 1987) using these short exposures calibrated on the system of Landolt (1992). The zero point for each color is uncertain by $`\pm 0.05`$ mag. A sample of main sequence stars was chosen based on their position on the locus of the main sequence as defined by this photometry. Each candidate was inspected for crowding and stars were chosen for the spectroscopic sample on the basis of minimum crowding. Table 1 gives the object’s coordinates (B1950), $`R`$ mag, $`BR`$ color, and indices (together with their errors) for two molecular bands, the G band of CH at 4305 Å and the CN band near 3880 Å, for the M71 main sequence stars in the spectroscopic sample. The magnitudes and colors given in Table 1 have not been corrected for extinction.

Since the fields are very crowded, in addition to providing the star coordinates, we provide an identification chart (Figure 1) for a few stars in the M71 sample, from which, given the accurate relative coordinates, the rest of the stars can be located. Relative stellar coordinates are defined from the LRIS images themselves assuming the telescope pointing recorded in the image header is correct and taking into account the optical distortions in the images. The astrometry of Cudworth (1985) is used to fix the absolute coordinates.

Figure 2 presents a color-magnitude diagram for the main sequence stars in the M71 sample. The stars that have been observed spectroscopically are displaced by $`0.6`$ mag in $`BR`$ color and are shown as filled circles.

The color-magnitude diagram of the field of M71 shown in Figure 2 reflects the low galactic latitude this cluster. There are many field stars, most redder and presumably more distant than the globular cluster itself. Because the radial velocity of M71 is $`27`$ km s<sup>-1</sup> (Cohen 1980), it is not possible to isolate a sample of cluster members using radial velocity measurements from low dispersion spectra. My sample will therefore have some field star contamination. To estimate the fraction of field stars in such a sample, Figure 3 shows a histogram in color of all stars with $`17.3<R<17.6`$ mag. The sharp rise at the blue end of the distribution arises from the cluster, while the extended tail to the red is from field stars.

The M13 main sequence shown in Paper 1 is very narrow in color. Some of the apparent spread in color seen in the case of M71 may be due to variations in reddening. These are easily detected at the level of $`25\%`$ of E$`(BV)`$ (and corresponding amounts in other colors) from multicolor photometry of stars on the red giant branch in more heavily reddened galactic globular clusters (Cohen & Sleeper 1995). In addition, the field of M71 is very crowded, even more so than either of the two fields in M13 studied in Paper 1. This may lead to photometric errors which might produce an apparent spread in color of the M71 main sequence.

Based on Figure 3 one might estimate a field star contamination which at worst does not exceed 25% of the sample.

## 3 SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS AND MEASUREMENT OF BAND INDICES

Three slitmasks were designed containing 79 stars from the M71 main sequence star sample. These were used at relatively low dispersion with the LRIS (300 g/mm grating, 2.46Å/pixel, 0.7 arcsec slit width) for a spectral resolution of 8Å. The CCD detector is digitized at 2 electrons/DN with a readout noise of 8 electrons. Two 800 sec exposures were taken with each slitmask under conditions of good seeing and dark sky in the summer of 1998. The data were reduced in a straightforward manner as described in Cohen et al. (1999) using Figaro (Shortridge 1988) except that the wavelength calibration came from arc lamp exposures, rather than from night sky lines on the spectra themselves. The spectra are not fluxed.

The definition of the CH and uvCN indices follows that of Paper 1, except that the wavelengths are shifted to take into account the difference in mean radial velocity between M13 and M71. The CH index again uses continuum bandpasses on both sides of the G band at 4305Å, with a feature bandpass chosen to avoid H$`\gamma `$. The CH and uvCN indices thus measured, together with their $`1\sigma `$ errors calculated assuming Poisson statistics are given in Table 1. The values are the fraction of absorption from the continuum, and are not in magnitudes. Recall that the errors given in Table 1 do not include the effect of cosmic rays nor the effect of the background signal from the night sky, both of which are small.

The M71 main sequence stars in my sample are somewhat brighter than those of M13, and the spectra are thus of even higher signal-to-noise than those of my main sequence sample in M13. Illustrative examples of the latter are shown in Figure 3 of Paper 1.

The continuum level in one star of the 79 in the M71 main sequence sample fell slightly below the minimum value (700 DN/pixel) set in Paper 1 for accepting the uvCN index measurements. However the features are so much stronger in this globular cluster that even the value for this object was accepted.

## 4 ANALYSIS

Figure 4 shows the CH index plotted as a function of $`R`$ mag for the 79 stars in my M71 main sequence sample. The 1$`\sigma `$ error bars are shown for each star. It is immediately clear that there is a large range in CH strength at all luminosities, which range is many times the measurement uncertainties.

Four of the stars in my M71 sample have very strong CH for their magnitude and are believed to be field stars. They are indicated by “x” symbols and are the only objects within the rectangle at the upper right of the figure. Ignoring these four stars, a second order least squares fit was carried out of CH index as a function of $`R`$ mag. Objects that lie above the mean fit are shown in Figure 4 as open circles, while objects that lie below this curve are shown as filled circles.

Ignoring the four probable field stars, the distribution of CH indices now appears to be approximately bimodal for the M71 sample.

Figure 5 show the results for the uvCN indices in the 79 M71 main sequence stars, again plotted as a function of $`R`$ mag. As was the case for the CH band indices, a large range in the strength of the uvCN band at a fixed luminosity is seen for the M71 main sequence. The overall appearance of the distribution is that it is bimodal. The same symbols are used in Figure 5 as in Figure 4. Comparing the two figures, it is immediately apparent that the CH and uvCN indices are anti-correlated. There are approximately equal numbers of CH strong/CN weak and CH weak/CN strong stars. Langer, Suntzeff & Kraft (1992) find this fraction determined from spectra of the red giants to vary from cluster to cluster among a set of three galactic globular clusters (M3, M13 and M79) of intermediate metallicity.

The good correlations seen in Figures 4 and 5 provide evidence that my M71 main sequence sample is not seriously contaminated by field stars.

## 5 DISCUSSION

In Paper 1 I showed that my data provide no evidence for variations of CH or CN band strengths among the 50 main sequence stars in our sample in M13. Here in the case of M71 I have found a range in CH and uvCN indices at a given luminosity along the M71 main sequence which is much larger than the measurement errors. Furthermore, the CH and uvCN indices are anti-correlated, and both appear to be bimodal.

It may well be that even though the measurement errors in M13 are small, the low metallicity of the cluster and the definition of such relatively crude molecular band indices conspire to hide any variation that may actually be present. The next paper in this series (Briley & Cohen 1999) will explore this possibility and will attempt to provide a guess as to the range of C and N variations that may be present in each of the two globular clusters, M71 and M13.

The next step will be to analyze other light elements in M71 to see if variations along the main sequence can be detected in Na, Ca or Mg, for example. Na and to a lesser extent Mg are known to vary among the giants and subgiants in several globular clusters. Suitable data from the LRIS at the Keck Observatory consisting of spectra of significantly higher dispersion than those analyzed here or in Paper 1 are already in hand for both the M71 and the M13 sample. These spectra can also be used to eliminate at least some of the field stars in the M71 sample through radial velocities.

Now that it is clear that variations of C and N are strong in at least two metal rich galactic globular clusters at the level of the main sequence, a major effort needs to be mounted to differentiate between mixing and primordial variations. Understanding the origin of these star-to-star variations at the level of the main sequence is an issue of importance not only to the field of globular cluster studies, but also has ramifications throughout many areas of stellar evolution and galaxy halo ages. I will return to this issue in future papers in this series.

## 6 SUMMARY

I have determined the strength of the CH and CN bands from spectra of 79 main sequence stars in M71. Significant variations in the strength of the G band of CH at 4305 Å and of the ultraviolet CN band at 3885 Å are seen from star to star at a fixed luminosity on the main sequence of M71. Both the CH indices and the uvCN indices appear to be bimodal and they are anti-correlated. There are approximately equal numbers of CN weak/CH strong and CN strong/CH weak main sequence stars in M71.

This is in contrast to the case of M13 discussed in Paper 1, where no variations are seen for C and N in M13 at the level of the main sequence turnoff and below it. I suggest that the variations may actually be present in M13 but cannot be detected with the molecular band indices I am using due to the low metallicity of M13 and to the lack of sensitivity of the molecular band indices themselves. The origin of this behavior, whether it is due mixing or to primordial variations or to some combination of these two factors, is not yet clear.

###### Acknowledgements.

The entire Keck/LRIS user community owes a huge debt to Jerry Nelson, Gerry Smith, Bev Oke, and many other people who have worked to make the Keck Telescope and LRIS a reality and to operate and maintain the Keck Observatory. We are grateful to the W. M. Keck Foundation, and particularly its late president, Howard Keck, for the vision to fund the construction of the W. M. Keck Observatory. I also thank Kevin Richberg for help with the data reduction.