The helium abundance in the metal-poor globular clusters M30 and NGC6397

Abstract

We present the helium abundance of the two metal-poor clusters M30 and NGC6397. Helium estimates have been obtained by using the high-resolution spectrograph FLAMES at the ESO Very Large Telescope and by measuring the HeI line at 4471 A in 24 and 35 horizontal branch stars in M30 and NGC6397, respectively. This sample represents the largest dataset of He abundances collected so far in metal-poor clusters. The He mass fraction turns out to be Y=0.252+-0.003 (sigma=0.021) for M30 and Y=0.241+-0.004 (sigma=0.023) NGC6397. These values are fully compatible with the cosmological abundance, thus suggesting that the horizontal branch stars are not strongly enriched in He. The small spread of the Y distributions are compatible with those expected from the observed main sequence splitting. Finally, we find an hint of a weak anticorrelation between Y and [O/Fe] in NGC6397 in agreement with the prediction that O-poor stars are formed by (He-enriched) gas polluted by the products of hot proton-capture reactions.