The star cluster age-metallicity relationship in the Small Magellanic Cloud

A.E. PIATTI

Bol. Asoc. Arg. Astron.

AAA Editorial board

Año: 2012 vol. 55 p. 321 - 324

0571?3285

               We present CCD Washington photometry of 11 Small Mag-ellanic Cloud (SMC) clusters for which age and metallicity estimates areprovided. The 11 clusters are witnesses of the ∼ 2 Gyr bursting formationepisode, according to their positions in the age-metallicity rela-tionship (AMR). We added these clusters to the largest known SMCcluster sample with ages and metallicities put into an homogeneous scale,and found that two enhanced formation episodes at t ∼ 2 and 5-6 Gyrthroughout the entire body of the galaxy, the absent of a metallicity gra-dient and a relative spread in metallicity for clusters older than ∼ 7 Gyrcomprehensively describe the SMC AMR. In addition, based on thestatistics of catalogued and studied clusters, we found that a total ofseven relatively old/old clusters have not yet studied, and even a smallernumber is obtained if the cluster spatial distribution is considered. A de-tailed version of this work can be seen in Piatti (2011, MNRAS,418, L73).