Heavy element in Galactic GC

In this sense, the characterisation of their chemical and orbital parameters can provide constraints on chemical evolution models of the Galaxy. We use the heavy element abundances of globular clusters to trace their overall behaviour in the Galaxy, with the aim to analyse potential relations between the hot H-burning and s-process elements.

We measured the content of CuI and s- and r-process elements (YII, BaII, LaII, and EuII) in a sample of 210 giant stars in 18 galactic globular clusters from high-quality UVES spectra. These clusters span a broad metallicity range and the sample is the largest that has been uniformly analysed to date, with respect to heavy elements in globular clusters. The Cu abundances did not show a considerable spread in the sample, nor any correlation with Na, indicating that the Na nucleosynthesis process does not affect the Cu abundance.