Lithium in a metal-poor external galaxy: ω Centauri

2009 
ω Centauri is a massive stellar system which is currently going through the Galactic Halo. Its compact aspect and spheroidal shape have for a long time led to it being classified as a Globular Cluster. However the fact that its stars cover a wide metallicity range (−0.6 i doublet in 91 Turn-Off and Sub-Giant stars at V ~ 18 in ω Centauri. We present our preliminary results on this data which suggest that the Li content in ω Centauri warm stars is comparable to that observed in Galactic Halo field stars of similar metallicities and temperatures. This may effectively rule out a whole class of models which invoke a severe Li depletion through processing of material in an early generation of massive stars.
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