Colour transformations for isochrones in the VI-plane

Abstract

Reliable temperature-colour transformations are a necessary ingredient for isochrones to be compared with observed colour-magnitude-diagrams of globular clusters. We show that both theoretical and empirical published transformations to (V-I) to a large extend exhibit significant differences between them. Based on these comparisons we argue for particular transformations for dwarfs and giants to be preferred. We then show that our selected combination of transformations results in fits of V-(V-I)-CMDs of a quality which is comparable to that of our earlier V-(B-V) isochrones for a wide range of cluster metallicities. The cluster parameters, such as reddening, are consistent with those derived in (B-V). Therefore, at least in the case of the fit with our own isochrones - based on the particular distance scale provided by our own horizontal branch models, and on the treatment of convection by the mixing-length theory having l/H_p calibrated on our solar model - the chosen transformations appear to lead to self-consistent (V-I) isochrones. Our isochrones are now well tested and self-consistent for B, V and I photometric data.