Multiple stellar population in the Sextans dwarf spheroidal galaxy?

Abstract

We present wide field (33 X 34 arcmin^2) multiband (BVI) CCD photometry (down to I <= 20.5) of the very low surface brightness dwarf Spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Sextans. In the derived Color Magnitude Diagrams we have found evidences suggesting the presence of multiple stellar populations in this dSph. In particular we discovered: {\it (i)} a Blue Horizontal Branch (HB) tail that appears to lie on a brighter sequence with respect to the prominent Red HB and the RR Lyrae stars, very similar to what found by Majewski et al. (1999) for the Sculptor dSph; {\it (ii)} hints of a bimodal distribution in color of the RGB stars; {\it (iii)} a double RGB-bump. All these features suggest that (at least) two components are present in the old stellar population of this galaxy: a main one with [Fe/H]~ -1.8 and a minor component around [Fe/H]<~ -2.3. The similarity with the Sculptor case may indicate that multiple star formation episodes are common also in the most nearby dSphs that ceased their star formation activity at very early epochs.