A&A 459, 499-509 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20065007

Deep near-IR photometry of eight metal-poor globular clusters in the Galactic bulge and halo

J.-W. Kim^{1, 2}, A. Kang^{1, 2}, J. Rhee^{1, 2}, H.-I. Kim³, Y.-C. Kim¹, D.-G. Kim^{1, 2}, C. Chung^{1, 2}, S.-I. Han^{1, 2}, M.-S. Chun¹ and Y.-J. Sohn<sup>1, 2

1</sup>  Department of Astronomy, Institute of Earth Atmosphere Astronomy, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea
    e-mail: sohnyj@yonsei.ac.kr; kjw0704@galaxy.yonsei.ac.kr
²  Center for Space Astrophysics, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea
³  Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon 305-348, Korea

(Received 11 February 2006 / Accepted 25 July 2006)

Abstract
High quality J, H and K' images are used to investigate the morphological properties of the near-infrared color-magnitude diagrams for five metal-poor bulge globular clusters and three halo clusters. Photometric parameters to describe the RGB shape, i.e., the colors at fixed magnitudes of M_K=M_H=(-5.5, -5, -4 and -3), the magnitudes at fixed colors of (J-K)_o = (J-H)_o = 0.70, and the RGB slope, have been measured from the fiducial normal points of the CMDs. We also measured the near-infrared magnitudes of the RGB bump and tip on the luminosity function of the RGB stars for each cluster. The RGB parameters of the observed metal-poor bulge and halo clusters are consistent with the previous empirical relationships between the RGB parameters and the cluster metallicity for metal-rich bulge clusters and halo clusters. The near-infrared magnitudes of the RGB bump and tip are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction of the Yonsei-Yale isochrone.

Key words: Galaxy: structure -- Galaxy: globular clusters: general -- stars: evolution -- infrared: stars -- techniques: photometric

© ESO 2006

The OpenURL standard is a protocol for transmission of metadata describing the resource that you wish to access. An OpenURL link contains article metadata and directs it to the OpenURL server of your choice. The OpenURL server can provide access to the resource and also offer complementary services (specific search engine, export of references...). The OpenURL link can be generated by different means.

• If your librarian has set up your subscription with an OpenURL resolver, OpenURL links appear automatically on the abstract pages.
• You can define your own OpenURL resolver with your EDPS Account. In this case your choice will be given priority over that of your library.
• You can use an add-on for your browser (Firefox or I.E.) to display OpenURL links on a page (see http://www.openly.com/openurlref/). You should disable this module if you wish to use the OpenURL server that you or your library have defined.