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# Optimizing ISOCAM data processing using spatial redundancy Based on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA

## 1 Introduction

The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) of the European Space Agency died on April 8 1998, 10 months after its expected end. This mission has been a great success Kessler (1999) and many of the scientific discoveries are yet to come. Much of the scientifical analysis of the data are still held by data reduction problems. In particular for the camera on board of ISO (ISOCAM - Cesarsky et al. (1996)), instrumental effects which are not well understood limit the sensitivity.

Much effort has been made to model the response of the ISOCAM array based on theoretical understanding of infrared detectors (Abergel et al. (1999), Coulais & Abergel (2000) and references therein). Nevertheless, no overall model of the ISOCAM response to flux steps and glitches is available. ISOCAM data reduction thus relies on an empirical understanding of the detector. Recently, sophisticated data reduction techniques have been developped to take into account some aspects of ISOCAM response (Starck et al. (1999), Désert et al. (1999), Aussel et al. (1999), Altieri et al. (1999)). These methods are close to being optimal for the detection of point sources. Nevertheless, in many observations, instrumental effects are still preventing the study of faint extended emission.

The development of the data reduction method presented in this paper was motivated by the analysis of ISOCAM observations of diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds. Such clouds, when illuminated by the solar neighborhood radiation field have mid-infrared brightness with very low contrast with respect to the zodiacal light (at most a few percent). To unveil these low signal-to-noise ratio clouds, variations in the detector response have to be corrected to an accuracy better than a fraction of 1%. At the present time, data processing techniques available do not allow to achieve such high sensitivity for extended emission. In this paper we present a data processing method that make it possible.

The algorithms presented here apply to observations made in raster mode with the Long Wavelength channel of ISOCAM (LW). It makes use of the fact that a given position on the sky has been observed several times by different camera pixels. Tests have been performed on extended emission observations presenting low and high contrasts. We have checked that our methods can be applied to most raster mode observations, and as a consequence concerns a significant fraction of ISOCAM observations (extragalactic, galactic and even solar system observations).

To illustrate the data processing we use two different observations of the same field, obtained subsequently in exactly the same configuration. The amplitude of instrumental effects are not the same in both observations, giving us constraints on the validity of our method. In section § 2 we present the observations used to illustrate the data reduction chain. In section § 3 standard data reduction techniques are briefly presented. The main problems of the standard reduction are described in § 4 and the new data processing approach to address these problems is detailed in § 5. The performances of the overall method are discussed in § 6.

## 2 Observation

The main ISOCAM technical characteristics are presented in Cesarsky et al. (1996). The LW channel of ISOCAM operates between 4 and 18 $`\mu `$m. A lens wheel allows the selection of the field of view per pixel (1.5, 3, 6 and 12 arcsecs), and a filter wheel the selection of the spectral band pass (10 broad band filters and two Continuously Variable Filters). The detector is a 500 $`\mu `$m thick crystal made of Gallium doped Silicon photo-conductor hybridized by Indium bumps. The 32$`\times `$32 square pixels are defined with a pitch of 100 $`\mu `$m.

A given observation (characterized by a given configuration (lens, filter, integration time)) is presented as a collection of $`32\times 32`$ images (called readouts) gathered together in a data cube. Three different observational modes were available with ISOCAM Siebenmorgen et al. (1997): 1) single pointing, raster mode, 2) beam switching and 3) spectrophotometry. The observations presented in this paper were obtained in raster mode where many readouts are put together to build a mosaic of the observed object (called sky image). The scanning strategy is made in such a way that each readout taken on the sky has some overlap with its neighbours (see Figure 1).

To illustrate the data reduction procedures, we use two ISOCAM observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 970402 first observed by BeppoSAX Feroci et al. (1997) on April 2.93 UT 1997. The coordinates (J2000) of the burst were $`\alpha =14^h50^m16^s`$, $`\delta =69^{}19^{}.9`$ with an error circle of radius 3’. Target-of-opportunity ISO observations (ISOCAM and ISOPHOT) were requested by Castro-Tirado et al. (1998) to detect a transient infrared emission of this burst. Unfortunately the observations did not show such emission. Nevertheless these particular observations are of great interest for us since the same field has been observed twice, subsequently within the same orbit, in exactly the same configuration to look for a decrease in the GRB emission. The observational strategy of the observations is sketched in Figure 1 and described in Table 1. Comparing the result of our processing on both observations (GRB1 and GRB2 in the following) allows us to validate the method.

## 3 Building the standard low level sky map

The standard ISOCAM reduction method consists of the following steps:

Deglitching. On any observation, numerous energetic particles impacts leave traces on one or several pixels of the detector. Most of these impacts do not affect the detector response on long time scale and are seen as instantaneous flux step (fast glitches). In Figure 2, a typical flux history of one pixel as function of time is shown where many fast glitches are apparent. Various techniques achieve to suppress these emission spikes Starck et al. (1999).

Dark image subtraction. The response of the LW detector of ISOCAM is not zero when the detector does not receive any photon coming from the sky. This dark image must be subtracted from the data. Temporal variation of the dark image has been observed (Starck et al. (1999)) and modeled by Biviano et al. (1998) using a polynomial function of time.

Short term transient. It has been known since pre-launch measurements Pérault et al. (1994) that the ISOCAM detector is affected by a transient effect, i.e. its response to a given flux step is not instantaneous. Recently a new model of the response, based on the physic of Si:Ga arrays Fouks & Schubert (1995), has been developped by Coulais & Abergel (2000). The uncertainty on the corrected flux with this new model is $``$ 1% but is raises to about 10% for point sources likely due to charge coupling effects between neighbouring pixels. This is not a strong problem here since we are mostly interested in diffuse emission.

Flat Field. Generally, each pixel of a detector does not have exactly the same response to a given flux. This spatial variation of the detector response (the flat field in the following) must be taken into account. The most straightforward way to compute an image of the flat field is to average all readouts of a data cube, and normalize the mean to 1 (Starck et al. (1999)). This technique supposes that all camera pixels have seen the same average flux along the observation. It is a reasonable approximation in raster mode where the camera is moving on a region of the sky much larger than the field of view of the camera, which do not contain any systematic gradient.

Building the sky image. After dividing the data cube by the flat field, the final standard data reduction step is to project each readout on the sky to build the sky image. The LW channel of ISOCAM is affected by a field of view distortion problem that must be taken into account in this operation Starck et al. (1999), especially to co-add properly emission from point sources and small scale structures.

The sky image of the GRB1 observation obtained with the standard data processing described in this section is shown in Figure 8a. It is affected by many instrumental problems that prevent to take advantage of the full sensitivity of the instrument. In the next section we describe the open problems for the imaging of faint extended emission.

## 4 Open problems

Long term transient. Figure 3 presents the temporal evolution, of the median flux observed in the $`11\times 11`$ central square of the detector for the GRB1 (a) and GRB2 (b) observations. One striking feature of Figure 3 is the drift in the first observation, not seen in the second one. This drift in ISOCAM response is observed quite frequently and is called in the following the Long Term Transient (LTT). When observed, the amplitude of the LTT is about 5% of the total sky emission like in Figure 3. One also sees that the first sky image (Figure 8a) is completely dominated by the long term drift. This is true for any observation affected by a LTT of faint extended emission with contrasts smaller than a few percent of the zodiacal light.

The LTT has been identified during the pre-launch measurements. Many calibration observations present a slow and continuous increase of the response after a positive flux step. This rise is gradually attenuating on a variable time scale which can be up to several hours. Unlike the short term transient, no analytical or physical description has been developped up to now to correct this specific effect which seems to be a general behavior of this type of detector. Vinokurov & Fouks (1991) adressed the problem of the long term drift in their study of nonlinear response of photoconductor. Unfortunatey the analytical approximation they propose does not seem to reproduce accurately ISOCAM’s LTT.

Slow glitches. Another important problem is related to glitches which modify the response during a significant time. This is illustrated in Figure 2 where one notices a significant change in the detector response near $`t=350`$ seconds, just after a glitch impact. The glitch impact is removed by the standard deglitching algorithm but the detector response is significantly disrupted for more than 500 seconds. In this example the signal is depressed after the glitch, but it can also be enhanced. These glitches with memory effect (called in the following “slow glitches”), which affect the response of one or more pixels for some time after the impact, are believed to be due to heavy ions. They are responsible for most of the periodic patterns seen in Figure 8a. No model has been developped to correct this instrumental effect. Désert et al. (1999) describe the various types of slow glitches known and a method to correct the response accident. However, this method has been optimised for point sources extraction project where diffuse emission is not intented to be restored, so we do not use it.

Ghosts. There are also several artificial point sources (“ghosts” in the following) due to uncorrected memory effects. After seing a bright point source, the response of a given pixel is significantly affected for some time. We have seen in the previous section that significant memory effects remain after strong point sources even after the short term transient correction. Therefore, as the satellite moves on the sky from one sky position to the other, pixels that have observed bright point sources are affected by a memory effect, and the pattern of each point source appears repetitively in the sky image until the response of the pixels gets back to a “normal” value.

We conclude that the actual data processing does not adequately take into account (1) the long term drift, (2) slow glitches and (3) short term transients on point sources. The long term drift precludes the study of large scale emission fainter than 10% of the zodiacal light background. All instrumental effects limit the brightness sensitivity for small scale structures. Solving these problems is crucial to take advantage of the unique sensitivity and angular resolution of ISOCAM. This is particularly true for small scale structures since generally, the contrast of interstellar medium emission decreases from large to small scales Gautier et al. (1992).

## 5 New approach for LW-ISOCAM data processing

### 5.1 General description

#### 5.1.1 General inversion method

To address the problems described in § 4 we have developped a method which uses the fact that a position on the sky has been observed by several ISOCAM pixels at different times (see Figure 1). The redundant information is used to separate the contributions of the sky emission and of instrumental effects to the observed signal. This approach has already been used for the IRAS mission (e.g. Okumura (1991) and Wheelock et al. (1997)) and may be generalized to every raster type observations, whatever the wavelength of observation. Formally the processing of astronomical data with spatial redundancy could be treated as an inversion problem. We can consider that the data observed $`O`$ is the result of the convolution of the real sky $`S`$ with the instrumental function $`I`$ plus some additive noise $`N`$:

$$O=IS+N.$$
(1)
When the observation has been conducted with spatial redundancy, it may be possible to address the data processing problem globally by finding $`I`$, $`S`$ and $`N`$ that will reproduce $`O`$ and minimize the difference between measurements obtained at the same sky position. Such an approach supposes that the main instrumental effects that affect $`I`$ and $`N`$ are known enough to constrain the inversion method. Presently this is not the case for ISOCAM.

#### 5.1.2 Sequential approach

ISOCAM’s response variations are complex and presently we are not able to model it with a reasonable number of parameters which would allow us to address the data processing problem by a global inversion. We have thus adopted a sequential approach where the instrumental effects are treated one at a time. Nevertheless, even if we cannot use such a global method, the idea of minimizing the differences between pixels that have seen the same sky position, is the milestone of our approach. In particular the ISOCAM long term drift problem is addressed by a least square minimization technique based on the fact that, if the detector is slowly reaching stabilization, the measured flux is also approaching the real observed flux. Here we suppose that every pixels of the array is affected by the same long term drift. The hardness of this assumption will be discussed in § 6.

Once the LTT is removed, the other response variations (slow glitches, ghosts and residual transient effects) are corrected by comparing the data cube to the sky image. This is done by two operations. First we compute a variable flat field that takes into account pixel-to-pixel response variations. Second, pixels that have a flux that departs significantly from the sky image are flagged out (these are called bad pixels in the following). This last operation removes slow glitches and ghosts. These two operations (variable flat field and bad pixels identification) can be done several times to improve the sky image (see Figure 4).

### 5.2 Long term transient

#### 5.2.1 Gain or Offset effect ?

First of all it is important to determine how the long term transient, the flat field $`F`$ and the observed flux $`I_{obs}`$ are related to the incident flux $`I_{sky}`$. We have considered the three following possibilities for the LTT:

1. Gain effect: $`I_{obs}=G(t)FI_{sky}`$
2. Offset effect affected by flat: $`I_{obs}=F(I_{sky}+\mathrm{\Delta }(t))`$
3. Pure offset effect: $`I_{obs}=FI_{sky}+\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$

The two GRB observations are of great help to conclude on the form of the LTT. As the two observations were done exactly in the same way, it is possible to subtract directly the two data cubes. In Figure 5a we show the flux history of two pixels of the GRB2 observation. As one can see there is no long term drift detectable in this observation. The flux difference between the two selected pixels is due to a $``$25% flat field difference. The difference between observation 1 and 2 for these two pixels is shown in Figure 5b. Both pixels have a very similar drift; the 25% difference between the two pixels flux does not appear in figure 5b. We then conclude that the LTT does not depend on the signal $`FI_{sky}`$. In this context, the only valid description of the LTT is the pure offset effect: $`I_{obs}=FI_{sky}+\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$. In the following we consider the LTT as a single offset over all the detector; in other words we suppose that all pixels are affected by the same offset.

#### 5.2.2 Formalism

For a given pixel at a position $`(x,y)`$ on the detector array and at a given time $`t`$, the observed flux $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)`$ is related to the temporally varying flat field $`F(x,y,t)`$, the incident flux $`I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ and the long term drift $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ by the following equation:

$$I_{obs}(x,y,t)=F(x,y,t)I_{sky}(x,y,t)+\mathrm{\Delta }(t).$$
(2)
Here we suppose that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is not pixel dependant.

The offset function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is found using equation 2 and the spatial redundancy inherent to raster mode observations. We determine $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ by solving a set of linear equations obtained by comparing flat field corrected intensities of the same sky positions but obtained at different times. The flat field $`F(x,y,t)`$ is computed using the perturbated single flat field method (see § A.2). The flat field corrected intensities can be written:

$$\frac{I_{obs}(x,y,t)}{F(x,y,t)}=I_{sky}(x,y,t)+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t)}{F(x,y,t)}.$$
(3)
In raster mode the camera does not always point at the same position on the sky. To compare two pixels that have seen the same position on the sky, we must put all readouts in a common spatial reference frame. Practically we project $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)`$ and $`F(x,y,t)`$ on the plane of the sky (right ascension ($`\alpha `$) - declination ($`\delta `$) reference frame). Following equation 3, the difference between two pixels in that reference frame that have seen the same sky $`I_{sky}(\alpha ,\delta )`$ at different time ($`t_i`$ and $`t_j`$) is:

$$\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}.$$
(4)
To ensure that we compare fluxes obtained at the same sky position, the field of view distortion must be accurately taken into account in the projection operation.

The function of interest $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is estimated using a least-square minimization technique with the following minimization criterion:

$`\chi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,\delta ,t_i,t_j}{}}[{\displaystyle \frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}}{\displaystyle \frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}}`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}}]^2.`$
Here the sum is on all the possible pixel pairs that have seen the same sky.

The function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ which minimizes the value of $`\chi ^2`$ is found by solving the system determined by:

$$\frac{\chi ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_i)}=0.$$
(6)
Equation 6 represents a standard set of linear equations which can be written in a matrix form: $`A\mathrm{\Delta }(t)=B`$, with:

$$A(i,j)_{ij}=\underset{\alpha ,\delta }{}\frac{1}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}$$
(7)
$$A(i,j)_{i=j}=\underset{\alpha ,\delta ,t_{ji}}{}\frac{1}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}$$
(8)
$$B(i)=\underset{\alpha ,\delta ,t_{ji}}{}\frac{1}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}\left[\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}\right].$$
(9)
The $`A(i,j)`$ and $`B(i)`$ terms are computed with all pixels that overlap. For each pair ($`i,j`$), the sums are always computed on the positions ($`\alpha ,\delta `$) where $`I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)`$ and $`I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)`$ are both defined.

Finally $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is found from: $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)=A^1B`$. As the second derivative of $`\chi ^2`$ is always positive, the solution found for $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ necessarily minimizes the $`\chi ^2`$ criterion. We add an offset to all values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ to force the correction to be zero at the end of the observation: $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t_{end})=0`$. This is justified by the fact that the long term transient tends to stabilize at the end of an observation. However, there are several observations not stabilised at the end, so that the absolute brightness may be systematically shifted (generally below a few %). For the observations of low contrasted clouds on top of a flat large scale emission (at least the zodiacal emission), this point is not critical since we always remove the large scale emission at the end of our processing.

#### 5.2.3 Practical implementation

Beside detector noise, two additional sources of uncertainties affect the comparison of raster images and thus the LTT correction through the minimization algorithm described in the previous section: slow glitches and flat field variations along the observation. The signal measured on point sources is not identical in the individual readouts, essentially due to the undersampling of the the point spread function for the 6” pixels. Bright sources are thus an additional source of error but they can easily be discarded. The two other noise sources make the practical implementation of the formalism a non-straightforward procedure.

An extensive use of the LTT inversion method presented here on real data has demonstrated the extreme importance of an accurate flat field. As the LTT correction is based on the comparison of the brightness measured by different parts of the array, its result depends on the accuracy of the flat field. In particular, when $`F(\alpha ,\delta ,t)`$ is not well estimated, oscillations in phase with the rastering of the observations may appear in the correction found. To pass around this difficulty we compute an approximate LTT correction (as oppose to the exact correction which is the solution of equation 6). The study of low contrast ISOCAM data affected by long term drifts has shown that, in some cases, the LTT can be approximated by the sum of two exponential functions, one upward and one downward:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(t)P\times \mathrm{exp}\left(Q\times t^R\right)S\times \mathrm{exp}\left(T\times t^U\right)$$
(10)
where $`P`$, $`Q`$, $`R`$, $`S`$, $`T`$ and $`U`$ are strictly positive. By approximating the LTT in that way, we greatly simplify the problem as $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ depends now only on six parameters. As for the exact solution, the approximated solution is found by minimizing the criterion of equation 5, using an IDL curve fitting program (MPFIT). The obvious advantage of this method is that the approximated LTT correction is smooth, getting rid of the oscillations found in some exact solutions.

On the other hand, we have observed cases where this approximation of the LTT does not hold. Sometimes, the LTT shows some oscillations that can dominate the emission in low contrasted fields (e.g. cirrus clouds - see Miville-Deschênes et al. (2000)). In these cases, an accurate estimation of the flat field and the use of the exact solution for the LTT are mandatory.

#### 5.2.4 LTT correction for the GRB1 observation

Figure 6 presents the LTT corrections found for the GRB1 observation. A perturbated single flat field (see § A.2) was used and point sources were discarded to compute the exact and approximated corrections. The approximated LTT correction is smoother than the exact one, which oscillates with a $`0.2`$ ADU/g/s amplitude and a period of $`1800`$ seconds. In this case we have applied the approximated LTT correction. The sky image computed after that correction has been done is presented in Figure 8b. One sees that it is mandatory to apply the LTT correction since its amplitude (3 ADU/g/s) is nearly three times the amplitude of the emission of interest (1.1 ADU/g/s). At this stage we have used a single flat field to compute the sky image. It is necessary to use a variable flat field to correct the artefacts (e.g. periodic patterns) seen in Figure 8b.

### 5.3 Variable Flat Field

Now that the LTT has been corrected, we take into account the pixel-to-pixel temporal variations of the detector response. These response variations are observed at various timescales. At short timescales they are due to bad short term transient correction, particularly on point sources. On longer time scales they are mainly caused by slow glitches (see § 4). The use of a single flat field (see § 3) does not take into account these temporal variations (that represent $``$1-3 % of the average flat field) preventing to benefit of the optimal ISOCAM sensitivity. To go further in the data processing, we try to correct these pixel-to-pixel response variations with a time-dependant flat-field (called “variable flat field” in the following).

For LTT corrected data, the observed flux $`I_{obs}`$ at position $`(x,y)`$ on the array and at time $`t`$ is

$$I_{obs}(x,y,t)=F(x,y,t)I_{sky}(x,y,t),$$
(11)
where $`F(x,y,t)`$ is the instantaneous response of pixel $`(x,y)`$ at time $`t`$. Thus flat field and sky structures are mixed together in $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)`$. In the following we show how the flat field variations can be extracted from the data by estimating $`I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ and by taking advantage of the spatial redundancy.

In raster observation mode, many pixels of the data cube have seen the same position ($`\alpha ,\delta `$) on the sky. By averaging all these pixels we reduce the noise due to instrumental effects on the computation of the sky image $`I_{sky}(\alpha ,\delta )`$. The estimate of $`I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ is made by an inverse projection of $`I_{sky}(\alpha ,\delta )`$ on each readout of the data cube. Then $`F(x,y,t)`$ is computed by averaging $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)/I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ with a sliding window on the time axis (see § A.1). Here are the guidelines of this method:

1. Construct a sky image.
2. Smooth (median smoothing) the sky image with a $`10\times 10`$ window.
3. Compute an ideal cube $`I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ by projecting the smoothted sky image on each readout of the data cube.
4. Smooth (median smoothing) $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)/I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$ on the time axis. The size of the smoothing window should be of the order of the time spend on 5 different sky positions.

The sky image of the GRB1 observation, obtained with the variable flat field, is shown in Figure 8c. The size of the filtering window on the time axis is 100 (corresponding to $``$500 seconds). As seen in Figure 8c, the variable flat field removes almost all periodic patterns due to high frequency variations of the detector response. Compare to other methods we have tested (see A.1 and A.2), this variable flat field gives by far the best results.

### 5.4 Bad pixels identification

The deglitching process used at the beginning of the reduction chain (see § 3) removes extremely deviant pixels that have been hit by cosmic rays. To go further in the noise minimization process, we take again advantage of the spatial redundancy.

#### 5.4.1 Ghost removal

Memory effects often appear after a strong flux step (e.g after a point source) due to improper short term transient correction; this is what we call ghosts. To identify pixels affected by such effects, we look on the flux history of every pixel for memory effect after a flux step (see Figure 7). Again we use the redundancy information to improve the identification of ghosts. Here is how we proceed:

1. Smooth (median smoothing) the sky image with a 3 $`\times `$ 3 window.
2. Compute an ideal cube by projecting the smoothted sky image on each readout of the data cube.
3. Compute the residual cube = $`|`$data cube - ideal cube$`|`$.
4. Identify strong flux steps as residual flux above 10 $`\times `$ the noise level.
5. On the time history of each pixels, identify ghost as residual fluxes above or under the noise level after a strong flux steps.
6. Flag ghosts in the original data cube.

#### 5.4.2 Noise reducer

We can go further in the reduction of the noise level by working sky position by sky position instead of working on the time history of every pixel. The idea is to look at pixels in the data cube that have seen the same sky position and discard deviant flux values.

First the sky image is smoothed (median smoothing) with a 10 $`\times `$ 10 window. Then, for a given sky position ($`\alpha `$, $`\delta `$), we compare the $`N`$ pixels in the data cube that have seen that position with the flux of the smoothed sky image. For most of the sky position, the $`N`$ pixels are distributed around the smoothed sky estimate. On the other hand, at point sources positions, the $`N`$ pixels will be generally above the smoothed sky estimate. Furthermore, it is also possible to find sky positions where most of the $`N`$ pixels have fluxes under the smoothed sky level. Here is how we deal with each case:

1. Most of the $`N`$ pixels are around the smoothed sky level ($`SML`$).
The new sky flux is the average of ($`SML3\times noise<I<SML+3\times noise`$)
2. Most of the $`N`$ pixels are above the smoothed sky level.
The new sky flux is the average of $`I>SML`$
3. Most of the $`N`$ pixels are under the smoothed sky level.
The new sky flux is the average of ($`SML3\times noise<I<SML`$).

This method allows to globally reduce the noise level and keep a good photometry of point sources. This is the final data processing step. The sky images obtained after bad pixels removal of the first and second GRB observations are presented in Figure 8 D and Figure 8 E.

## 6 Assesment of the method

### 6.1 Comparison of the two GRB observations

From the comparison of the final maps of the two GRB observations (Figure 8 D and Figure 8 E) we can estimate the reliability of our processing. At first glance we see that the structure of the diffuse emission is very similar in both maps; the LTT correction applied seems to restore properly the large scale structure. Furthermore, almost all point like structures are present in both maps giving confidence in our bad pixels identification.

The difference of the two final sky images is shown in Figure 8F. It is dominated by small scale structure noise but large scale structures are also apparent. These are probably due to error in the LTT correction. Extra noise is seen at point source positions. This was expected as memory effects are not fully corrected on point sources and that we are undersampling the PSF. One also notices that the noise level is higher at the edges of the difference map, due to less redundancy in these regions. The standard deviation of the difference map (Figure 8F) in the central part of the field is 0.06 ADU/g/s. Therefore, the noise on each GRB final maps can be estimated at $`0.06/\sqrt{2}=0.04`$ ADU/g/s.

It is clear from the difference map (Figure 8F) and from the impact of the LTT on the sky image that noise is present at all scales. The processing presented in this paper affects the signal at various scales. To characterize the noise as a function of angular scale we use the structure function of second order:

$$B^2(l)\frac{[I_{sky}(r)I_{sky}(r+l)]^2}{N(l)},$$
(12)
where the sum is over all the $`N(l)`$ pairs of points separated by a distance $`l`$. To estimate the noise at each scale in the first map, the one affected by all instrumental effects, we compute the structure function on the difference between the first map of the GRB1 observation and the final one of the GRB2 observation. This difference map, where the sky is removed, is dominated by the noise of the GRB1 observation. The structure function of this difference map rises strongly from small to large scale (see Figure 9), mainly due to the presence of the LTT. To estimate the noise at the end of the processing, we have computed the structure function on the difference between the final maps of the two GRB observations (see figure 8F). This time the structure function is very flat (see figure 9). The noise level is reduced by a factor ten at 8 arcmin scale and a factor two at the resolution limit. This indicates that the noise level has been lowered at all scales and that it is now uniform at all scales.

### 6.2 Study of the noise sources

The goal of this section is to show that the high spatial frequency noise of our maps is close to the optimal value obtained with stabilized ground calibration data with no glitches. The data are affected by many sources of noise. First, there are the classical quantum photon noise and the detector readout noise which have been extensively studied in the pre-launch calibration phase Pérault et al. (1994). A conservative value of the readout noise is given in the ISOCAM cookbook: 1.5 ADU/g. Secondly, memory effects (short term transient, long term transient and slow glitches) and fast glitches with small amplitude increase substantially the noise levels. These non-gaussian events may prevent to reach the optimal sensitivity.

The noise level is measured on the flux history of pixels for which fast glitches have been removed. We have selected pixels not affected by slow glitches. We quantify the noise using the standard deviation of the high frequency component of the pixel flux history. We see on Table 2 that the noise level of the two GRB observations is in total agreement with the readout and photon noise estimated from calibration data (for a 41.5 ADU/g/s flux).

The flux $`I_{sky}`$ at a given position in the final sky image is the average of $`N`$ independant flux measurements. The error $`\delta `$ on $`I_{sky}`$ can be estimated by

$$\delta =\frac{\sigma }{\sqrt{N}},$$
(13)
where $`\sigma `$ is the standard deviation of the $`N`$ flux measurements used to compute $`I_{sky}`$. We have computed the error map at each step of the processing. In Figure 10 is shown the error $`\delta `$ of each sky position for the sky image obtained before the LTT correction (Figure 10A) and for the final sky image (Figure 10B) of the GRB1 observation. In the Figure 10A one sees an enhancement of the error in the southern part of the image, due to the presence of the LTT. Glitches and periodic flat defects appear as noise peaks in this error map. The structure of the final error map (Figure 10) is dominated by the redundancy effect: the noise is higher on the edges of the map as less flux measurements were obtained in these regions.

For each sky image of Figure 8, Table 2 lists the median error $`\delta `$, the median redundancy $`N`$ and the median standard deviation of the $`N`$ flux measurements averaged at each sky position. The first thing to notice is that the noise level decreases gradually through the processing. In the final sky image, the median $`\sigma `$ is only 5% above the noise calibration measurement for the GRB1 observation. The noise in the GRB2 observation is exactly the one obtained with stabilized ground calibration data with no glitches.

The dispersion of the difference between the two final maps (divided by $`\sqrt{2}`$) is 0.04 ADU/g/s (see § 6.1) which is 35% above the noise level computed on each final map (0.03 ADU/g/s - see Table 2). This 35% difference is partly due to the increase noise on point sources and to the imperfection of the LTT correction. Nevertheless, considering the amplitude of the instrumental effects (3 ADU/g/s for the LTT) we think that the comparison between the two GRB observations is a strong validation of the whole processing.

Finally we conclude from the numbers of Table 2 that the noise level in our final maps are dominated by the readout and photon noise. The other instrumental effects are corrected in the data reduction. Such ISOCAM sensitivity has been obtained in recent point sources extraction studies Désert et al. (1999); Aussel et al. (1999) where the low frequency diffuse emission is removed. It is the first time that such a sensitivity is reached for the emission structure on all scales.

## 7 Conclusion

The data processing techniques presented here are based on the fact that each position on the sky has been observed several times and by different pixels along the observation. Taking advantage of this redundancy information inherent to raster mode observations, we are able to control some instrumental effects which degrade the signal, reduce the noise level and finally bring images obtained with the LW channel of ISOCAM to a quality level close to optimal. The principal of the method presented could be generalized to all observations with spatial redundancy.

The quality of the final images is limited by our ability at separating the various instrumental effects. We have adopted a sequencial approach where each of the problems is treated one after the other, but a global minimization would be a better way to find the optimal solution. However such an approach seems to be out of reach for ISOCAM since several instrumental problems (e.g. the LTT and response variation after glitches and point sources) are presently not understood.

All raster ISOCAM observations can benefit from the data processing described here. This includes mapping of solar system extended objects (comet dust trails), nearby clouds and star forming regions, images from diffuse emission in the Galactic plane and external galaxies. Several publications based on the interpretation of ISOCAM observations reduced by the present method are being prepared.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the different teams at IAS, CEA-Saclay, ENS-Paris and ESA for their outstanding work and continuous support during all phases of the ISO project. The Fond FCAR du Québec and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada provided funds to support this research project. MAMD warmly thanks Leo Metcalfe for very helpfull discussions.

## Appendix A Flat fielding

### A.1 Averaging on a sliding window

One way to estimate a flat field for each readout of a data cube consists to compute a sliding window average of the data cube:

$$F(x,y,t_i)=\frac{1}{N}\underset{t_j=t_iN/2}{\overset{t_i+N/2}{}}I_{obs}(x,y,t_j),$$
(14)
where $`N`$ is the size of the sliding window.

The variable flat field is normalized to 1 over the 11$`\times `$11 central part of $`F(x,y,t)`$:

$$F(x,y,t_i)=\frac{F(x,y,t_i)}{F(10:21,10:21,t_i)}.$$
(15)
Here we suppose that during the $`N`$ readouts the camera has observed many positions on the sky and each pixel of the detector has seen the same flux in average. This is a good approximation if the sky observed is rather smooth and does not contain too much small scale structures. If the emission is fairly uniform on the detector, the number of images required to compute the flat field may be relatively small. The choice of $`N`$ depends on the number of readouts taken per sky position and on the contrast of small scale structures (in our case we use $`N=100`$). Extreme high and low fluxes pixels were rejected (top and bottom 15%) in order to exclude glitches and point sources. The main limitation of this method is that sky structures may be still present in the variable flat field.

### A.2 Perturbated single flat field

The perturbated single flat field method is based on the following assumption. We suppose that the variable flat field is, to first order, a single flat field $`F(x,y)`$ computed on the whole data cube (see § 3). The temporal variations of the flat field are treated as perturbations of the single flat, and we have:

$$I_{obs}(x,y,t)=[1+\delta (x,y,t)]F(x,y)I_{sky}(x,y,t),$$
(16)
where $`\delta (x,y,t)`$ is the perturbation term that take into account flat field deformations.

Flat deformations are mainly due to slow glitches and bad short term transient correction (especially on point sources). Therefore, for one given readout, they are considered as small scale defects, and $`\delta (x,y,t)`$ is dominated by high frequency structures in the $`(x,y)`$ space.

On large scale, the quantity

$$\frac{I_{obs}(x,y,t)}{F(x,y)}=I_{sky}(1+\delta (x,y,t))$$
(17)
is dominated by real large scale structures ($`I_{sky}(x,y,t)`$) and not by flat defects ($`\delta (x,y,t)`$).

The low frequency sky emission $`I_{SLF}(x,y,t)`$ is estimated by smoothing (median filtering) each readout of $`I_{obs}(x,y,t)/Flat(x,y)`$. The size of the smoothing window has to be smaller than the smallest sky structures and larger than the largest flat defects. In most cases a compromise must be found (typically a 7$`\times `$7 window). Then the flat field deformations are estimated using:

$$(1+\delta (x,y,t))\frac{I_{obs}(x,y,t)}{F(x,y)I_{SLF}(x,y,t)}.$$
(18)
We get rid of residual high frequency real sky structures by applying a temporal sliding average (see § A.1) over the right hand side term of equation 18.

The variable flat field is finally obtained with:

$$Flat(x,y,t)=[1+\delta (x,y,t)]F(x,y)$$
(19)
The averaging on a sliding window method (see § A.1) follows low frequency temporal flat field deformations but, as a limited number of readouts are averaged together, sky structures are still present in the flat field. The perturbated single flat field is a better estimate since low frequencies of the incident flux cube are removed.

## Appendix B LTT error determination

The error on the LTT correction is estimated using the standard deviation constructed with all the pixel pairs used to compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$. The offset correction is based on Equation 4. For a pixel pair (($`\alpha ,\delta ,t_i`$) and ($`\alpha ,\delta ,t_j`$)) that have seen the same sky at different time, the offset at time $`t_i`$ is given by:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Phi }(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i,t_j)=\hfill & F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)\times \hfill \\ & \left[\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i)}\frac{I_{obs}(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(t_j)}{F(\alpha ,\delta ,t_j)}\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
We have evaluated the statistical error on the offset correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t_i)`$:

$$\sigma (t_i)=\sqrt{\frac{1}{n(n1)}\underset{\alpha ,\delta ,t_{ji}}{}(\mathrm{\Delta }(t_i)\mathrm{\Phi }(\alpha ,\delta ,t_i,t_j))^2}$$
(21)
where $`n`$ is the number of pixel pairs.


text:
# BARYON MASS SPECTRA WITH QCD - TYPE SCREENED POTENTIAL

It is widely accepted that quark potential model is able to give a rather good description of heavy quark systems, though, the problem of application of such a model to the light quark systems,especially to baryon case is more complicated. On the other hand, the study of such systems is attractive for many reasons. Firstly, the experimental situation in this case is much more abundant. Secondly, there is no hope in near future to solve the relativistic three-body problem. Moreover, the baryon spectra are usualy treated separately from the meson ones and so the question arises how far the barions and mesons (both light and heavy ones) can be treated in the unified approach.

Usually the potential which is used nas the power-law form

$$V\left(r\right)=\frac{\alpha _s}{r}+Ar^\gamma ,\text{ }\gamma =1,2,2/3$$
(1)
Of these potentials the most appropriate seems to be potential with $`\gamma `$ = 1 called Cornell - potential. The attempt to compare all these potentials is given in  where the necessary references to previous works is also given.

On the other hand involving the virtual loop - diagram of fermions in lattice gauge calculation leads to colour screening effects - the potential does not rise at very large separation. Clearly, these colour screaning effects may reveal themselves in the highly - excited barion resonances. Meantime, a very promising QCD - motivated potential was proposed by Chikovani, Jenkovszky and Paccanoni (CJP) on the basis of the model of a non \- perturbative gluon propagator. It was succesfully applied to the heavy meson spectroscopy  and it turns out that such a potential having the form

$$V\left(r\right)=\frac{g^2}{6\pi \mu }\left(1e^{\mu r}\right)\frac{16\pi }{25}\frac{e^{kr}}{\mathrm{ln}\left(b+\frac{1}{\left(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}r\right)^2}\right)}$$
(2)
contains color screening effects. None of the above mentioned power - law potentials posses the screening property. Previously, the colour screaning effects in baryon spectroscopy were studied in  using similar, but purely phenomenological potentials. In the present paper we shall study the baryon mass - spectra using the CJP potential.

To obtain the mass - spectrum of the three - quark problem one has to solve the eigenvalue problem, which in our model means solving the Schrödinger equation with the appropriate boundary conditions. To determine the wave function of relative motion $`\phi (\rho ,\tau )`$ we go over to the spherical coordinate system in the six - dimensional configuration spece, which is often referred to as hyperspherical coordinates.

As was disscused in  it turns out sufficient to restrict ourselves to K - zero approximation in which case the Schrödinger equation is reduced to a single radial equation:

$$\left[\frac{d^2}{dr^2}\frac{K\left(K+1\right)}{r^2}2\mu \left(E\mathrm{\Phi }_0\left|V(R,\alpha )\right|\mathrm{\Phi }_0\right)\right]u\left(R\right)=0.$$
(3)
Here

$$u\left(R\right)=R^{3/2}\chi \left(R\right),\text{ }K=\mathrm{\Lambda }+3/2.$$
(4)
The matrix elements $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0\left|V(R,\alpha )\right|\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, according to , assume the form

$$W_n=\frac{16}{\pi }_0^{\pi /2}V\left(r_{ij}\right)\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha \mathrm{cos}^2\alpha d\alpha .$$
(5)
The mass of three - quark system is calculated according to the relation

$$M=3m_q+E+V_0,$$
(6)
Here $`V_0`$ is additional parameter. Such parameters are present in QCD - motivated potentials and describe the energy level shift in QCD - vacuum. Besides $`V_0`$ can include in our model spin - dependent and relativistic corrections (like $`p^2/8m^3`$) and, thus, it can depend on quark mass. The discussion concerning the meaning of $`V_0`$ is given also in .

In what follows we have used the following values of the parameters. The masses of up and down quarks were taken to be as usually in quark models ,  $`m_u=m_d=0.33`$ $`GeV`$ wich follows from magnetic momentum considerations. For CJP potential the parameters were choosen as: $`g^2/6\pi =0.24`$ $`GeV^2`$, $`\mu =0.054`$ $`GeV^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.35`$ $`GeV,`$ $`k=0.75`$ $`GeV^2`$, $`b=4`$ . While $`V_0`$ is chosen to be equal $`V_0=1.376`$ $`GeV`$.

In the present paper, we have considered $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}`$-trajectories with the following quantum numbers $`P=+1,`$ $`J=3`$/2, 7/2, 11/2,… and with signature $`\sigma =1`$. The results of calculations together with experimental data are presented in table 1. The experimental data are taken from .

| $`N`$ | $`L`$ | $`\left(3/2\right)^+`$ | $`\left(7/2\right)^+`$ | $`\left(11/2\right)^+`$ | $`\left(15/2\right)^+`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`0`$ | $`M_{EXP}`$ | $`1232\pm 2`$ | $`1950\pm 10`$ | $`2420\pm 80`$ | $`2950\pm 70`$ |
|  | $`CJP`$ | $`1223`$ | $`1953`$ | $`2479`$ | $`2949`$ |
| $`1`$ | $`M_{EXP}`$ | $`1920\pm 80`$ | $`2390\pm 38`$ |  |  |
|  | $`CJP`$ | $`1813`$ | $`2397`$ |  | $`\chi ^2=1.35`$ |
| $`2`$ | $`M_{EXP}`$ | $``$ |  |  |  |
|  | $`CJP`$ | $`2290`$ |  |  |  |

Table 1. Baryon count, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{33}`$-trajectory (MeV)

As one can see from the table 1, the description of the existing data given by CJP potential is very good. So we can see that in addition to $`q\overline{q}`$systems  the screened QCD-type potential gives also the description of $`qqq`$systems, i.e. baryons.

\_______________________________________________


text:
# 𝜔 Centauri – a former nucleus of a dissolved dwarf galaxy? New evidence from Strömgren photometry

## 1 Introduction

Since decades $`\omega `$ Centauri has been the target of many investigations by photometric and spectroscopic means. It is known as an extraordinary object among the star clusters of our Galaxy. $`\omega `$ Cen is not only the most massive and one among the most flattened Galactic globular clusters (Meylan meyl87 (1987); White & Shawl whit87b (1987)), but also shows strong variations in nearly all element abundances investigated so far (e.g. Norris & Da Costa norr95 (1995) and references therein). This is reflected by the intrinsic broad scatter of the red giant branch (already noticed in the 70s by Cannon & Stobie cann (1973)) that cannot be explained by internal reddening only (e.g. Norris & Bessell norr75 (1975)). Most recently, Pancino et al. (panc (2000)) confirmed the existence of a very metal-rich population in $`\omega `$ Cen whose red giant branch (RBG) is well separated from the bulk of the RGB stars.

The abundance variations in $`\omega `$ Cen point to a more complicated star formation history than that for other globular clusters which contain a homogeneous stellar population. Whereas the CNO variations might be explained by evolutionary mixing effects in the stellar atmosphere as well as by mixing in the protocloud (e.g. Bessell & Norris bess76 (1976)), the iron abundance variations need another explanation (e.g. Vanture et al. vant (1994), Norris & Da Costa norr95 (1995)). The metallicity distribution of the stars in $`\omega `$ Cen, as derived from Calcium abundance measurements of more than 500 red giants (Norris et al. norr96 (1996)), indicates a bimodality with a distinct peak at \[Ca/H\] $`1.4`$ dex and a shallower peak at -0.9 dex. These authors also quote statistical evidence that the more metal-rich stars are stronger concentrated towards the cluster center, as one may expect from a dissipative settling of the gas in a self-enrichment process. Similar results were obtained by Suntzeff & Kraft (sunt96 (1996)) who measured Calcium abundances of $``$ 380 stars and also found a peak at \[Fe/H\] $`=1.7`$ dex and a broad tail to higher metallicities. Their data did not support a bimodal metallicity distribution, but again a weak radial metallicity gradient. Both groups favoured an extended period of star formation connected with self-enrichment as the interpretation of their data. A dynamical analysis of 400 stars in the Norris et al. (norr96 (1996)) sample revealed a rotation of the metal poor component, whereas the metal rich one is not rotating (Norris et al. norr97 (1997)). This may be compatible with a merger of two globular clusters with different masses, as shown by the model calculations of Makino et al. (maki (1991)). However, then one would expect a metallicity distribution that is peaked at two distinct values, which is in contradiction to the continuous distribution shown by the authors.

A recent spectroscopic investigation by Smith et al. (smith00 (2000)) shows no strong signatures of enrichment by SNe Ia, but a strong increase of s-process heavy elements with iron abundances, as has been found by Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)) and other studies as well. This can pose a problem, since these elements are believed to come from AGB stars (see Smith et al. smith00 (2000) for a discussion and references), and SNe Ia probably also have intermediate-age progenitors (e.g. McMillan & Ciardullo (mcmi96 (1996)).

Because of its peculiar properties, more and more authors raised the question, whether $`\omega `$ Cen can actually be regarded as a “true” globular cluster, or whether it is more likely the stripped nucleus of a dwarf galaxy that has been accreted by the Milky Way (Majewski et al. maje99b (1999), Lee et al. leey (1999), Hughes & Wallerstein hugh (1999)). This scenario has also been proposed for M54, one of the most massive globular clusters. It is a candidate for the nucleus of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (e.g. Bassino & Muzzio bass95 (1995)). Three more globular clusters might have belonged to Sagittarius (Da Costa & Armandroff daco95 (1995)), now be added to the Milky Way globular cluster system.

Similarly, the globular clusters NGC 362 and NGC 6779 might have been associated with the former host galaxy of $`\omega `$ Cen because of their similar, strong retrograde orbits (Dinescu et al. dine99b (1999)).

An origin of $`\omega `$ Cen within a dwarf galaxy outside the Milky Way could provide a natural explanation for its unique properties. Local Group dwarf spheroidals are known to have complex star formation histories (e.g. Grebel greb97 (1997)). One can imagine that this could also be true for the nuclei of dwarf galaxies which either experienced a extended period of star formation from enriched gas retained in the galaxy potential, or even were built from a merger of two clusters that spiraled into the center of the dwarf galaxy (Miller et al. mill98 (1998)). Medium-resolution spectroscopy of 25 nuclei in dwarf ellipicals of the Fornax cluster indicated that all these nuclei have a metal-rich component and some even may be sites for recent star formation (Held & Mould held (1994)).

However, whether the metallicity spread in $`\omega `$ Cen also is accompanied by an age spread awaits verification. In most investigations age effects cannot be disentangled from metallicity effects in the turn-off and giant branch region. Hughes & Wallerstein (hugh (1999)) observed one field in $`\omega `$ Cen with Strömgren $`vby`$ photometry which is more metallicity sensitive than broad band photometry. They report an age spread of at least 3 Gyr for stars between $`2.2<`$ \[Fe/H\] $`<0.5`$ dex (the metal-richest stars also being the youngest). However, a study of $`\omega `$ Cen in the Washington system combined with the DDO51 filter, which is similarly sensitive to metallicity as the Strömgren system, could not confirm this result (e.g. Majewski et al. maje99b (1999)). Further photometric and spectroscopic analysis with a high metallicity and age resolution are needed to fully understand the complex formation and enrichment history of this outstanding object.

In this paper we present CCD Strömgren $`vby`$ photometry of about 810 arcmin2 area within $`24\mathrm{}`$ from the cluster center. Strömgren photometry has been proven to be a very useful metallicity indicator for globular cluster giants and subgiants (e.g. Richter et al. richp (1999), Hilker hilk00a (2000), Grebel & Richtler greb92 (1992), Richtler rich89 (1989)). The location of late type stars in the Strömgren $`(by),m_1`$ diagram is correlated with their metallicities, especially with their iron and CN abundances. A new Strömgren metallicity calibration for red giants is presented by Hilker (hilk00a (2000)). With our observations we are able to determine Strömgren metallicities of a statistically complete number of red giants in $`\omega `$ Cen and study their spatial distribution.

In Sect. 2 we present the observations and data reduction. Sect. 3 presents color magnitude diagrams and selection criteria that have been used to determine the metallicity distribution from the $`(by),m_1`$ diagram (Sect. 4). In Sect. 5 the red giants in $`\omega `$ Cen have been divided into sub-populations, whose ages and spatial distribution have been analysed. Finally, Sect. 6 suggests a formation history for $`\omega `$ Cen and Sect. 7 summarises the results.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

The observations of $`\omega `$ Centauri have been performed in two observing runs in 1993 and 1995 with the Danish 1.54m telescope (direct imaging) at ESO/La Silla. In both runs, the CCD in use was a Tektronix chip with 1024$`\times `$1024 pixels. The $`f`$/8.5 beam of the telescope provides a scale of $`15\stackrel{}{.}7`$/mm, and with a pixel size of 24 $`\mu `$m the total field is $`6\stackrel{}{.}3\times 6\stackrel{}{.}3`$. In the first run, 11.-15. May 1993, 8 fields have been observed through the Strömgren $`vby`$ filters. The nights were not always photometric, and the seeing, measured by the FWHM of stellar images, was in the range $`1\stackrel{}{.}1`$$`2\stackrel{}{.}5`$ (see Table 1). In the second run, 21.-24. April 1995, 10 fields have been taken. All nights had photometric conditions, and the seeing varied between $`1\stackrel{}{.}1`$$`1\stackrel{}{.}7`$. The observation log of both runs is given in Table 1 and the position of the fields are illustrated in Fig. 1. Additionally, 20 fields with short exposures have been observed in order to cover the spectroscopic sample of 40 red giants (Norris & Da Costa norr95 (1995)), which have been included in a new Strömgren metallicity calibration (Hilker hilk00a (2000)). The observation and data reduction of these fields is described in Hilker (hilk00a (2000)).

The CCD frames were processed with standard IRAF routines, instrumental magnitudes were derived using DAOPHOT II (Stetson stet87 (1987), stet92 (1992)). For the comparison with the standard stars, aperture–PSF shifts have been determined in all fields. The remaining uncertainty of this shift is in the order of 0.01 mag in all filters. For the ’95 run the corrected magnitudes of the stars belonging to overlapping areas of two adjacent fields agree very well and have been avaraged for the final photometry file. For the photometric reference the ’95 run have been chosen, since the ’93 run was not continuously photometric. The instrumental magnitudes determined in this run have been transformed to those of ’95 using stars belonging to overlapping areas. The calibration of the combined sample was done via standard stars by Jønch-Sørensen (jonc93 (1993), jonc94 (1994)) obtained in the ’95 run. The calibration equations and coefficients are given in Richter et al. (richp (1999)), in which the Strömgren photometry of M55 and M22 is presented. All Strömgren colors refer to the photometric system defined by Olsen (olse93 (1993)).

After the photometric reduction, combining of the data sets, and calibration of the magnitudes, the average photometric errors for the red giants used for the metallicity determination are 0.012 mag for $`V`$, 0.016 mag for $`(by)`$ and 0.025 mag for $`m_1`$.

## 3 The Color Magnitude Diagram (CMD)

Figure 2 shows the $`(by)`$ versus $`V`$ color magnitude diagram of all observed stars in $`\omega `$ Cen with a photometric error less than 0.1 mag ($``$ 91450 stars, grey dots) and less than 0.03 mag ($``$ 20620 stars, black dots) in $`y`$ and $`b`$. Furthermore about 300 definite cluster members, on the basis of their radial velocities (Norris et al. norr97 (1997), Suntzeff & Kraft sunt96 (1996)) are marked with bold dots. The colors have been corrected for a reddening value of $`E_{BV}=0.11`$ mag (Zinn zinn85 (1985), Webbink webb (1985), Reed et al. reed (1988), Gonzalez & Wallerstein gonz (1994)). This corresponds to $`E_{by}=0.08`$ and $`E_{m_1}=0.02`$, using the relations of Crawford & Barnes (craw (1970)), $`E_{by}=0.7E_{BV}`$ and $`E_{m_1}=0.3E_{by}`$. The broad red giant branch (RGB) cannot be explained by photometric errors or internal reddening. The dispersion in the blue horizontal branch (BHB) along the reddening vector in the range $`0.01<(by)_0<0.05`$ and $`14.5<y_0<14.8`$ is 0.037 mag. The expected photometric error in the same direction is 0.017 mag. Thus, internal reddening should be in the order $`E_{by}0.02`$ mag, or $`E_{BV}0.03`$, consistent with what already was found by Norris & Bessell (norr75 (1975)). The dispersion of the RGB in the same magnitude bin and $`0.47<(by)_0<0.57`$ is 0.051 mag, significantly higher than that at the BHB. At other magnitudes the dispersion orthogonal to the RGB is as follows: $`12.0<y_0<12.4`$: 0.078 (0.013), $`13.2<y_0<13.6`$: 0.055 (0.016), and $`16.3<y_0<16.7`$: 0.035 (0.025). In brackets the expected photometric errors are given. Note that the dispersion increases from the lower towards the upper RGB.

Since the $`(by)`$ color as a metallicity indicator is not affected by CN variations, the spread in the RGB must be due to a spread in the overall metallicity (iron abundance) and/or age. It is interesting to note that a remarkable number of stars is located redwards of the apparent “main” RGB, which cannot be explained by foreground stars only (a lot of them are definite members, see Fig. 2). Their existence in this CMD points to a small population of stars that are significantly more metal-rich than the majority of the stars in $`\omega `$ Cen (see also Pancino et al. panc (2000)).

The situation changes when plotting the $`(vy)_0`$ color versus $`y_0`$ (see Fig. 3). The red giants cover a much wider color range. In this CMD the scatter towards redder colors is not only due to different metallicities and ages, but is mainly dominated by the CN variations, since the $`v`$ filter is sensitive to the CN band strength. Whereas CN-rich stars scatter to redder colors, the CN-normal stars with a low metallicity clearly define a sharp sequence at the blue side of the RGB. Thus, the combination of both diagrams can be used to separate the metal-poor CN-normal stars from CN-rich ones (see next section) and study their properties. Note also that in the $`(vy)`$,$`y`$ CMD the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) is more clearly separated from the RGB than in the $`(by)`$,$`y`$ CMD.

### 3.1 The redness parameter

As mentioned in the previous section the displacement of giants from the “main” RGB towards redder colors in the $`(by),y`$ CMD reflects their higher metallicity, but does not depend on the CN anomalies. In order to quantify this deviation we defined a parameter that measures the distance of a red giant in the CMD from the blue envelope of the RGB along the reddening vector. The blue envelope was parameterized by the following function,

$`y_0=a_0+a_1/(by)_0+a_2/(by)_0^2`$

with the parameters $`a_0=10.917`$, $`a_1=1.308`$, and $`a_2=1.436`$. This in the following called “redness” parameter $`p_{\mathrm{red}}`$ is illustrated in Fig. 4. For illustrative purposes, we distinguish between 4 “populations”. Stars that are located bluewards of the RGB ($`=`$ negative $`p_{red}`$) mainly are AGB stars (P1). The RGB is divided into three subsamples: a blue (P2; $`0.01<p_{\mathrm{red}}<0.17`$) and a red (P3; $`0.17<p_{\mathrm{red}}<0.29`$) side of the RGB, and all stars that are redder than the “main” RGB (P4; $`0.29<p_{\mathrm{red}}<1.0`$).

## 4 The two-color diagram and metallicity distribution

The $`(by),m_1`$ diagram (Fig. 5) is indicative for the metallicity distribution and CN variations of the red giants in $`\omega `$ Cen. The selected 1500 red giants (see Fig. 4) show a large scatter between $`2.0`$ and 1.0 dex in their Strömgren metallicity. The Strömgren metallicity is defined as

$$[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]_{\mathrm{ph}}=\frac{m_{1,0}1.277(by)_0+0.331}{0.324(by)_00.032}$$
(1)
following the calibration by Hilker (hilk00a (2000)). The trend exists that stars on the blue side of the RGB are mostly metal-poor, whereas the stars redwards of the “main” RGB populate the metal-rich regime, as one would expect if no CN-anomaly was present. This trend becomes even more pronounced, if the stars are plotted in a metallicity histogram. The upper panel in Fig. 6, where \[Fe/H\]ph denotes the Strömgren metallicity, shows the distribution of all selected stars. A peak around $`1.7`$ dex with a sharp cutoff towards low metallicities at $`1.9`$ dex represents the blue RGB stars (P2). Also most of the AGB stars (P1) bluewards the main RGB belong to this metal-poor population. Stars from the red side of the RGB (P3) have metallicities mainly in the range $`1.3`$ to $`0.5`$ dex. If stars with a low accuracy (stars bluer than the dotted line in Fig. 5) are skipped, the P3-stars appear well separated from the metal-poor population and define a second peak at about $`0.9`$ dex (see lower panel, Fig. 6), resembling the results of Norris et al. (norr96 (1996)). Stars with Strömgren metallicities higher than about $`0.8`$ dex are supposed to be CN-rich stars of one of the two populations, since no stars with an iron abundance higher than that has been found in the cluster. However, many of them are redder than the “main” RGB. Since their $`(by)`$ color is not influenced by CN variations, their existence in the CMD can only be explained by higher iron abundances. In the upper panel of Fig. 6 the numbers in the metallicity histogram represent about the correct proportion of metal-poor to metal-rich stars, since the stars have been selected due to a luminosity cut in the CMD (see Fig. 4). The metal-poor population in $`\omega `$ Cen dominates the metal-rich one by a ratio of about 3:1.

### 4.1 Strömgren metallicity versus Fe, C and N abundance

The metallicity distribution found in our investigation is qualitatively very similar to that found by Norris et al. (norr96 (1996)) and Suntzeff & Kraft (sunt96 (1996)) from their Calcium abundance measurements. In Fig. 7 we show the metallicity distribution of those stars that are in common in both samples. The Calcium abundances from Suntzeff & Kraft (upper panel) have been transformed to iron abundances according to the relation given in their paper.

The behaviour of $`\omega `$ Cen regarding its relation between Fe abundance and Strömgren metallicity is remarkably different from that of other globular clusters (open circles in the lower panel of Fig. 7, including NGC 6334, NGC 3680, NGC 2395, NGC 6397, M22 and M55, taken from Hilker hilk00a (2000)).

The straight relation up to -1 dex (with large scatter towards higher metallicities) is in striking contrast, for example, to the situation in M22 (Richter et al. richp (1999)), where there is a considerable scatter at a fixed iron abundance. What determines the Strömgren colors in $`\omega `$ Cen? An answer may come from a comparison of the available elements abundances for 40 giants from Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)), which in part also entered the calibration of Hilker (hilk00a (2000)) with our Strömgren colors. Fig. 8 shows in four panels the Strömgren metallicity vs. \[Fe/H\], \[C/H\], \[N/H\], and \[C+N/H\]. It is apparent that the correlation with \[Fe/H\] and \[C/H\] is very poor. It is better for \[N/H\] (note the large error of 0.4 dex given for the N-abundance by Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)), and best for \[C+N/H\].

On the other hand, there is a close correlation of \[Fe/H\] vs. \[C+N/H\] (Fig. 9) (which, by the way, is suprising, given the above large error of the N abundance). The two most deviating stars are ROA 139 and ROA 144. They have the highest N-abundances in this sample, simultaneously low oxygen abundances and hence are probably strongly affected by mixing effects.

If we skip them, a linear regression returns $`0.64\pm 0.07`$ for the slope, indicating that the increase in C+N is faster than in \[Fe/H\]. Can this be understood as a stellar evolutionary effect? As Norris & Da Costa point out, C-depletion as a signature of the CNO-cycle is present and one may see the increase in the C-abundance with \[Fe/H\] in their Fig.8a to have its cause in the decreasing efficiency of the mixing-up of processed material with increasing metallicity, as it is theoretically expected (e.g. see Kraft kraf94 (1994)). But then, the increase in C+N is not easy to understand, since it is dominated by an increase of N, where we would expect a decrease, and, after all, the sum of C and N should be less sensitive to mixing effects.

A further striking fact is that we see in Fig. 7 the relation between \[Fe/H\] and Strömgren metallicity already present among the old population, where it is hard to understand that such small differences in \[Fe/H\] would cause a regular pattern in the mixing effects. We thus propose that the gradual enrichment of C+N, indicated by the Strömgren colors, is to a large degree primordial (we use the term “primordial” as the alternative to mixing effects).

The suggestion that a part of the proto-cluster material of $`\omega `$ Cen has undergone considerable C-enrichment has also been made by e.g. Cohen & Bell (cohe86 (1986)) and Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)) based on the unique presence of CO-strong stars. Moreover, the \[C/Fe\] abundance in the metal-poor population is about $``$0.7 dex according to Norris & Da Costa, which is close to $``$0.5 dex, theoretically expected from the yield ratios in SNe II (Tsujimoto et al. tsuj95 (1995)). If, say, $``$0.2 dex would be the “true” value of \[C/H\], one would require a considerable C-contribution from intermediate-age stars, which by itself is not easy to understand for the first stars formed in $`\omega `$ Cen. Also a mean \[O/C\]-value of approximately $``$1 dex, as one would read off from Norris & Da Costa is close to the theoretically expected yield ratios from SNe II.

On the other hand, if the increasing \[C+N/Fe\] among the metal-poor old population was, at least to large part, primordial, one is driven to the conclusion that the star formation process, which formed these stars, did not took place in a single burst within a well-mixed environment, but must have been extended in time, allowing intermediate-age populations to contribute.

We shall attempt to combine these abundance pattern with other properties within a consistent scenario later on.

### 4.2 Metallicities in the MSTO region

The Strömgren $`m_1`$ index also is sensible to metallicity for stars around the main sequence turn-off (MSTO) region. A recent calibration has been published by Malyuto (maly (1994)) which is valid in the color ranges $`0.22<(by)_0<0.38`$ and $`0.03<m_{1,0}<0.22`$ (the above considerations regarding the C-sensitivity do not necessarily apply here since the CN-band influence is less in these hotter stars). Hughes & Wallerstein (hugh (1999)) applied this calibration to their Strömgren data of $`\omega `$ Cen and showed that the stars of different metallicity bins hardly differ in the location at the MSTO region (see their Fig. 9 and 10). There exists the trend that the more metal-rich stars seem to be bluer in average than the metal-poor ones, in contrast to what one would expect if all stars had the same age. Applying Malyuto’s calibration to our data we confirm this finding, as shown in Sect. 5.1. In Fig. 11 (right panels) the location of MSTO stars for three different metallicity bins is shown. Since our sample is not complete in this magnitude range and photometric errors are large, we hesitate to attempt a quantitative analysis of the metallicity distribution in the MSTO region. But it is apparent that the more metal-rich stars cannot be fit by old isochrones.

## 5 Analysis of sub-populations in $`\omega `$ Cen

The combination of the redness parameter $`p_{\mathrm{red}}`$ and the Strömgren metallicity \[Fe/H\]ph can be used to divide the RGB in different sub-populations and examine their ages and their spatial distribution in the cluster. In Fig. 10 a plot of $`p_{\mathrm{red}}`$ versus \[Fe/H\]ph is shown. As mentioned in the previous section there exists the general trend that the reddest stars also are tho most metal/CN-rich ones as it is expected. The solid diagonal line in this diagram shows the expected relation between $`p_{\mathrm{red}}`$ and \[Fe/H\]ph if the stars would behave according to the calibration of Hilker (hilk00a (2000)) (“CN-normal stars”). Besides the asymptotic giant branch, three sub-populations have been selected (boxes with solid lines) that define different parts of the giant branch in the CMD. Confirmed member stars of $`\omega `$ Cen according to their radial velocities are spread all over the parameter space (dark dots). Hence a separation of non-member stars in this diagram is hardly possible. Later on, we will use further sub-selections within the sub-populations (dashed and dotted areas) to examine the different spatial distributions within $`\omega `$ Cen.

### 5.1 Age estimation of sub-populations

For the identification of possibly different ages among the sub-populations of $`\omega `$ Cen the isochrones from Bergbusch & VandenBerg (berg (1992), in the following BV92) have been used, converted to Strömgren colors by Grebel & Roberts (greb95 (1995)).

The location of the metal-poor giants in the CMD has been used to define a reference isochrone. Adopting their known metallicity (\[Fe/H\]$`=1.7`$ dex), a distance modulus, color offset, and age has been determined. For fitting the RGB, only stars with a photometric error less than 0.025 mag in $`y`$, $`b`$ and $`v`$ are selected. The error in metallicity of these stars is less than 0.3 dex. In the MSTO region stars with a color error less than 0.03 mag in $`(by)`$ and 0.04 mag in $`m_1`$ have been selected to determine the location of the isochrone.

The best fitting isochrone for \[Fe/H\]$`=1.7`$ dex is shown in the upper panels of Fig. 11 (solid line). A distance modulus of $`(mM)_0=13.57`$ mag and additional necessary offsets in $`(by)`$ of $`[(by)_0(by)_{\mathrm{iso}}]=0.037`$ mag and in $`m_{1,0}`$ of $`[m_{1,0}m_{1,\mathrm{iso}}]=0.005`$ were used. The age that fits best the MSTO region and follows the shape of the RGB is 18 Gyr. We note that this isochrone does not perfectly fit the color of the RGB but is slightly redder which might be due to uncertainties in the color transformations of this set of isochrones to observational data. Moreover, we are aware of the fact that the absolute age has to be corrected towards younger ages when applying more recent sets of isochrones (i.e. VandenBerg et al. vand00 (2000)), but, unfortunately, newly calculated isochrones in the Strömgren system still are missing.

In comparison to the selected reference isochrone, relative ages and metallicities ($`=`$ iron abundances) of the other sub-populations in $`\omega `$ Cen have been determined (see Fig. 11). Whereas the color of the RGB stars is quite sensitive to metallicity, but not to age, the metallicity selected stars in the MSTO region can constrain the age (see also results of Hughes & Wallerstein hugh (1999)).

The main (blue) part of the RGB, called population 1) and defined by $`0.04<p_{\mathrm{red}}<0.18`$ and $`2.0<`$\[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}<0.1`$, corresponds to the reference isochrones. This population can be fit by isochrones in the metallicity range $`2.0<`$\[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}<1.4`$ dex and ages between 16 and 18 Gyr. Although all stars in this metallicity range might be fit by the same age (see dotted lines in the upper panels of Fig. 11), there exists the tendency that the more metal-rich stars seem to be better fit by the younger isochrones (see Fig. 12). Stars with higher Strömgren metallicities than -1.3 dex (see $`(by),m_1`$ diagram in Fig. 11) cannot be fit by isochrones with the corresponding metallicities. For the same ages these isochrones would be too red in the RGB region, for younger ages they are too blue in the MSTO region. Thus, these stars are most probably CN-rich stars of the old, metal-poor population.

Population 2), defined by $`0.20<p_{\mathrm{red}}<0.46`$ and $`1.4<`$\[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}<1.0`$, lies beyond the main RGB region redwards of pop 1). Best fitting isochrones range between $`1.4`$ and $`1.0`$ dex. Only few stars show these metallicities in the $`(by),m_1`$ diagram, reflecting the fact that most of them are CN-strong. The age of this population ranges between 12 and 16 Gyr. Older isochrones with metallicities around $`1.3`$ dex do not fit the MSTO region (see dotted isochrone in the right middle panel of Fig. 11). Isochrones with higher metallicities than $`1.0`$ dex do not fit pop 2) at any age.

The last defined population 3), with $`0.47<p_{\mathrm{red}}<0.80`$ and $`0.6<`$\[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}<1.3`$, stands apart from the broad main sequence, but nevertheless contains confirmed cluster members (see Fig. 10) and was clearly detected in the large sample of Pancino et al. (panc (2000)). Isochrones that fit this population are in the range $`0.8`$ to $`0.6`$ dex and around 10–12 Gyr. Older isochrones with \[Fe/H\]$`=0.8`$ dex do not fit the MSTO region.

The results of the age determination is summarized in Fig. 12. In the grid of the isochrone set dark grey areas mark the best fitting isochrones in comparison to the reference isochrone (black square). Isochrones represented in light grey marginally fit the borders of the MSTO and/or RGB region for the selected stars of a particular metallicity. There obviously exists an age metallicity relation in the sense that the more metal-rich stars tend to be younger. Whereas all stars of the main RGB with metallicities between $`2.0`$ and $`1.4`$ dex might be compatible with one age, the populations with metallicities around $`1.2`$ and $`0.7`$ dex are at least 2–5 and 5–8 Gyr younger. If the age metallicity relation in $`\omega `$ Cen can be understood as a continuous enrichment process after an initial starburst with \[Fe/H\]$`1.7`$ dex, the age spread of the enrichment lies between 5 and maximally 8 Gyr. We note that the latest isochrones sets (e.g. VandenBerg et al. vand00 (2000)) give absolute ages that are about 2-5 Gyr younger than that of Bergbusch & VandenBerg (berg (1992)) at a given magnitude and color. Also the relative age differences would result smaller so that, in fact, the age spread of the populations in $`\omega `$ Cen might not be that large as indicated above.

### 5.2 Spatial distribution of red giants

The same sub-populations, as defined for the age determination, have been used to investigate the spatial distribution of their stars. Additionally, the AGB stars have been included. In Fig. 13 the metallicity distribution (left panels), the cumulative radial distribution (middle panels), and the angular distribution (right panels) of all selections are shown. Only stars within the area indicated in Fig. 4, with photometric errors less than 0.05 mag and errors in the metallicity determination less than 0.4 dex have been selected. A central circular area with a radius of $`30\mathrm{}`$ have been excluded because of incompleteness in this area. The metallicity distribution of all selected stars ($`=1448`$) is shown as reference in the left panels. The cumulative profiles of these stars and 160 probable non-members are shown as grey lines in the middle panels. The non-members have been selected according to: $`14.5<y_0<16.5`$ and $`0.1<(by)_0<0.4`$. For plotting the angular distribution, we included only stars within a radius of $`10\mathrm{}`$ from the cluster center. The number counts have been normalised to the total number for each selection. The angle $`\varphi `$ is defined as $`0\mathrm{°}`$ in East direction, $`+90\mathrm{°}`$ North, and $`90\mathrm{°}`$ South. The histogram of all stars ($`=1186`$ giants, grey histogram in the right panels, Fig. 13) shows the reference distribution function in the selected area.

The population of the selected 83 AGB stars is very metal-poor with a small fraction of CN-strong stars (see Fig. 13, upper left panel). Therefore, they most probably belong to the old metal-poor population in $`\omega `$ Cen. Also their cumulative radial distributions resemble closely that of pop 1). A Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test gives a 98% probability that both radial distributions are equal. Deviations in the angular distribution are statistically not significant as shown by the error bar.

When comparing population 1) with population 2) there seems to be a slight difference in their radial distributions in the sense that the ratio of the metal-rich to metal-poor (pop2:pop1) is higher in the cluster center than in its outskirts. This result is statistically significant as discussed below and shown in Fig. 14. The angular distribution of both sub-populations do not differ significantly from each other. Within the metal-poor population 1) there exists only a marginal difference between the 542 selected CN-normal and 209 CN-rich stars in their spatial distributions.

In Fig.14 the higher concentration of the more metal-rich stars is highlighted. In this plot only stars in an E-W-strip with a N-S-extension of 20$`\mathrm{}`$ have been selected, since these fields belong to the most homogeneous set of long exposures. 500 metal-poor giants are compared with 190 giants of the more metal-rich population (selections see dotted boxes in Fig. 10). A KS test reveals a probablity of less than 0.1% that the cumulative number counts of both populations follow the same radial distribution.

The radial distribution of the stars in pop 3) appears less concentrated than the average cluster population. Some of them might be solar metallicity foreground stars. However, others are confirmed cluster member stars. The angular distribution of pop 3) shows a concentration of stars towards the South and a slight depression in the West and North direction which can explain the different radial distribution. In this context we note that Jurcsik (jurc (1998)) reported on a spatial metallicity asymmetry in $`\omega `$ Cen. Taking all stars with known iron abundances, either directly measured or derived from \[Ca/H\] values, she found that the most metal-rich stars with \[Fe/H\]$`>1.25`$ dex are concentrated towards the South, whereas the most metal-poor stars with \[Fe/H\]$`<1.75`$ are more concentrated in the North. In order to check this result, two sub-samples have been defined that match the two selections by Jurcsik in our \[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{},p_{\mathrm{red}}`$ plane (dashed boxes in Fig. 10). In Fig. 15 the angular distributions are shown. The sample of Jurcsik (light grey histograms) contains 35 metal-poor and 18 metal-rich stars that are in common with our photometric sample. The high concentration of the most metal-rich stars in the South is confirmed by our selection of 42 metal-rich stars. It even is more pronounced. Nearly 30% of the sample are located in the Southern angular bin. A KS test reveals a probability of 94% that the metal-rich stars from the Jurcsik and our sample have the same angular distribution. However, we cannot confirm an asymmetrical distribution in the North-South direction of the 131 selected most metal-poor stars. There exists an excess of stars towards the East which might be explained by the high ellipticity of this population, but number counts in the North and in the South are the same. The probability that the angular distribution of the metal-poor stars of Jurcsik’s and our sample agree is less than 7% (KS test). Also less than 7% is the probability that metal-rich and metal-poor stars are distributed equally.

## 6 Problems and a scenario

Can the younger populations in $`\omega `$ Cen be enriched by the older one? In trying to answer this we use oxygen as a tracer for the synthesized material. First we estimate the number of SNe type II having occured in the old population. If we adopt the mass of $`\omega `$ Cen to be $`4\times 10^6`$ solar masses (Pryor & Meylan pryor93 (1993)), the metal-poor population comprises about $`2.8\times 10^6`$ solar masses. Now we assume a Salpeter mass function (exponent $``$2.3) between 0.1 and 100 solar masses. Then we can calculate the number of expected SNe II, if we furthermore assume that each star more massive than 10 solar masses explodes as SN II. We get 45000 SNe. This number would be (perhaps considerably) higher, if the actual mass function was shallower than a Salpeter mass function at lower masses, for which there is evidence (Paresce & De Marchi pare00 (2000)). The total oxygen mass released by these SNe is about 50000 solar masses, (based on Table 7.2 of Pagel pagel97 (1997)). On the other hand, following Norris & Da Costa norr95 (1995), a mean \[O/H\] value for the metal-rich population is -0.7 dex (adopting \[O/Fe\] = 0.5 dex and \[Fe/H\] = $``$1.2 dex), so we calculate the actual oxygen mass to be 2300 solar masses, if the total mass of the young population is $`1.2\times 10^6`$ solar masses. Since Smith et al. (smith00 (2000)) see no signature of enrichment by SNe Ia, it is reasonable to assume that the oxygen mass, which was present already in the gas before the enrichment, scales with the iron abundance. The difference is approximately a factor of 3, so we have 1500 solar masses of newly synthesized oxygen in the metal-rich population. This means that only 3% (and probably much less) of the released oxygen has been retained. If we do that exercise with the iron abundance, we have 1000 solar masses of iron released (Pagel pagel97 (1997), S. 158), and we have about 20 solar masses of newly synthesised iron present. Of course, the exact numbers are insignificant, but they demonstrate that practically all material must have been blown out.

This is also plausible from the energy point of view. We have a release of kinetic energy by about $`5\times 10^{54}`$ erg from the SNe (neglecting previous stellar winds and ionizing radiation), while the binding energy of the “proto-young population” is about $`2\times 10^{52}`$ erg, if we for simplicity imagine that the gas was confined within an half-light radius of 7 pc (Djorgovski djor93 (1993)).

Similar factors must apply for the overall fraction of retained gas, implying an unreasonable large protocluster mass (neglecting the problem how a bound system could survive with such low star formation efficiency), if one wants to live with a permanently retained large gas fraction.

But we have even more problems. Smith et al. (smith00 (2000)) do detect only weak signatures of SNe Ia, expressed by the low \[Cu/Fe\] value of -0.6 dex. On the other hand, both the age spread, the increase of s-process elements, and the interpretation of the Strömgren results as primordial enrichment of C and N speak for the contribution of an intermediate-age population. Within 3-4 Gyr, at least some Ia events should have been ocurred, making the problem with the low iron content even worse, if they would have provided iron to the young population. Why do we not see their debris?

Moreover, it is remarkable that we find the signature of intermediate-age populations already among the old population, indicated by the evidence that the same relation between \[Fe/H\] and Strömgren metallicity (Fig. 7), which connects the oldest and the younger population, appears already to be present at the lowest metallicities. The general behaviour of the Strömgren metallicities resembles in this respect the well established enrichment of s-process elements relative to iron. Unfortunately, the sample of spectroscopically studied stars is still too small to allow a definite statement also for the metal-poor population, but Fig.12 of Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)) indicates that there might be an increase of barium relative to iron already at low metallicities. How can these stars, in a regular pattern, be self-enriched simultaneously by SNe II and by intermediate-age stars?

It may be that one can construct a scenario in which these oddities can be explained by pure self-enrichment (see for instance Smith et al. smith00 (2000)). However, we wish to point out an alternative, which has not yet been mentioned and which seems to offer an easier way towards an understanding of $`\omega `$ Cen.

The above problems arise under one certain assumption, namely that $`\omega `$ Cen formed out of a gaseous protocluster of the appropriate mass, which had for a long time a high gas-to-star ratio. If we (speculatively) drop this assumption, then the problems are less severe.

The previously expressed hypothesis that $`\omega `$ Cen was the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy, gains much attractivity in this context. We additionally speculate that its star formation rate was triggered galaxy. We additionally speculate that its star formation rate was triggered over a very extended period (perhaps more than 5 Gyr) by mass supply from the overall gas reservoir of its host galaxy. This scenario can explain all characteristic properties of $`\omega `$ Cen found so far.

This gas inflow, already enriched in the host galaxy, could have occured in a non-spherical, clumpy and discontinuous manner, providing angular momentum and thus giving rise to the flattening of $`\omega `$ Cen. We have no problems with the competition of gas removal and simultaneous enrichment. The intermediate-age population stars in $`\omega `$ Cen released their gas, for instance by planetary nebulae, in a much less violent fashion and the infalling gas can mix with this C and N rich material, which also was rich in s-process elements, giving rise to a new star formation period. The large scatter in the Strömgren metallicities may thus be in part primordial, reflecting the incomplete mixing of the infalling gas with the C-N-rich material. Both SNe II,Ib and Ia would sweep up the gas almost completely, terminating star formation for a short while, until further mass infall becomes possible.

It also seems natural that younger and more metal-rich populations show other kinematic and spatial properties, including asymmetries in their spatial distribution, depending on the details of the infall process. We would then expect many periods of strong star formations alternating with periods of mass infall. The mass infall would finally cease after the gas content of the host galaxy has become sufficiently low or was perhaps removed by ram presure stripping in the Galactic halo during its infall in the Milky Way (e.g. Blitz & Robishaw blit (2000)). One is tempted to ask, whether $`\omega `$ Centauri could have evolved to a object resembling the bulge of a spiral galaxy, if its host galaxy would have been more massive.

The subsequent evolution can be sketched as follows: on its retrograde orbit the dwarf galaxy spiraled towards the Galactic center (Dinescu et al. dine99b (1999)). On its way it lose the outermost stellar populations by tidal stripping, including the two likely member globular clusters NGC 362 and NGC 6779 (Dinescu et al. dine99b (1999)). Finally, after its stellar population dissolved totally, the nucleus $`\omega `$ Cen remained and appears now as the most massive cluster of our Milky Way.

A strong motivation for the above scenario comes from the C+N enrichment relative to iron of the metal-poor population. It would therefore be of extreme interest to have a larger sample of metal-poor stars (possibly main sequence stars) spectroscopically analysed to see whether this feature can also be seen in the s-process elements.

## 7 Summary and Conclusions

For about 1500 red giants in $`\omega `$ Centauri Strömgren metallicities have been determined. Almost 2/3 of them turn out to be metal-poor, with a peak in the metallicity distribution at \[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}=`$1.7 dex. This finding is consistent with previous result by other authors (e.g. Norris et al. norr96 (1996), Suntzeff & Kraft sunt96 (1996)). In the CMD, this population is best fit by old isochrones (17-18 Gyr: Bergbusch & VandenBerg berg (1992)). The identifiable AGB stars seem to belong to this population according to their low metallicities and small fraction of CN-strong stars. The metallicity range in the main RGB is about $`1.9<`$\[Fe/H\]$`<1.5`$ dex. However all stars of this population are consistent with a single old age, there might exist an age spread of maximally 2 Gyr in the sense that the more metal-rich stars are younger.

Beyond the strongly peaked metal-poor population, the metallicity distribution shows a sharp cutoff towards lower metallicities, but a broad, long tail towards higher Strömgren metallicities. Most of these stars are CN-rich. Among them, a second major population ($`1/4`$ of the whole population), peaks around \[Fe/H\]$`{}_{\mathrm{ph}}{}^{}=`$0.9 dex, defines a giant branch redwards the main RGB that is best fit by an iron abundance around $`1.2`$ dex and ages 2-5 Gyr younger than that of the oldest population. Isochrones with older ages do not fit the location of the main sequence turn-off region.

In the CMD of $`\omega `$ Cen there exists a red giant branch far redwards from the main RGB that contains proven cluster member stars according to their radial velocities. This population exhibits less than 5% of the whole cluster population. The best fitting isochrones have an iron abundance around $`0.7`$ dex and ages 5-8 Gyr younger than the oldest population. Strömgren metallicities of most of them ($``$80%) are significantly higher than $`0.7`$ dex, identifying them as CN-strong stars.

The comparison between \[Fe/H\] abundances derived from high-dispersion spectroscopy of Norris & Da Costa (norr95 (1995)) and Strömgren metallicities shows a behaviour distinctly different from that observed in other globular clusters. There is hardly a correlation with \[Fe/H\], but a close correlation with \[C+N/H\].

However, the comparison of Strömgren metallicities to the larger sample of Suntzeff & Kraft (sunt96 (1996)) shows that there is a coupling to the iron abundance indicating that this has a primordial cause. It is already visible among the metal-poor population and we interpret it as another manifestation of the well established increasing contribution of intermediate-age populations with increasing iron abundance.

The comparison of the cumulative radial distribution of the two main populations in $`\omega `$ Cen exhibits a higher concentration of the metal-rich stars within a radius of $`10\mathrm{}`$ from the cluster center. The youngest, most metal-rich population has an asymmetrical distribution around the cluster center with a concentration towards the South. Jurcsik (jurc (1998)) argues that the strong asymmetry of the most metal-rich stars in $`\omega `$ Cen points towards a relatively recent effect, since an initial ($`>15`$ Gyr) spatial metallicity anisotropy could not have been preserved that clearly. However, Meylan (meyl87 (1987)) calculated that the relaxation time of $`\omega `$ Cen beyond the half-mass radius ($`r_h=2\stackrel{}{.}6`$) is 20-30 Gyr, compared to 1 Gyr within the core radius ($`r_c=4\stackrel{}{.}8`$). Since most of the metal-rich stars are located around or beyond the half-mass radius and furthermore seem to be 5-8 Gyr younger than the old population in $`\omega `$ Cen, an initially asymmetric distribution of them is probably still not relaxed.

Our findings are consistent with a scenario in which enrichment of the cluster has been taken place over a period of at least 3 Gyr and maximally 6 Gyr. The conditions for such an enrichment can perhaps be found in nuclei of dwarf galaxies, where a secondary star formation is common (Grebel greb97 (1997)). All characteristic properties of $`\omega `$ Cen (flattening, abundance pattern, age spread, kinematic and spatial differences between metal-poor and metal-rich stars) could be understood in the framework of a scenario, where infall of previously enriched gas occured in $`\omega `$ Cen over a long period of time. Only the enrichment of nitrogen, carbon, and s-process elements took place within $`\omega `$ Cen, where the infalling gas mixed with the expelled matter from AGB stars.

The capture and dissolution of a nucleated dwarf galaxy by our Milky Way and the survival of $`\omega `$ Cen as its nuclues would thus be an attractive explanation for this extraordinary object. Several recent publications also support this idea and rule out other possibilities like a chemically diverse parent cloud or a merger of two clusters (e.g. Majewski et al. maje99b (1999), Lee et al. leey (1999), Hughes & Wallerstein hugh (1999)).

###### Acknowledgements.

This research was supported through ‘Proyecto FONDECYT 3980032’. We thank Boris Dirsch for helpful discusiions and Eva Grebel for giving access to her isochrones.