M54 red giants abundances

Here, we attack the Li problem by considering an alternative diagnostic, namely the surface Li abundance of red giant branch stars that in a colour-magnitude diagram populate the region between the completion of the first dredge-up and the red giant branch bump.

We obtained high-resolution spectra with the FLAMES facility at the Very Large Telescope for a sample of red giants in the globular cluster M54, belonging to the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. We obtain A(Li)=0.93+/-0.11dex, translating - after taking into account the dilution due to the dredge-up - to initial abundances (A(Li)_0_) in the range 2.35-2.29 dex, depending on whether or not atomic diffusion is considered. This is the first measurement of Li in the Sagittarius galaxy and the more distant estimate of A(Li)_0_ in old stars obtained so far.