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# 𝑢𝑣𝑏𝑦𝐶𝑎H𝛽 CCD Photometry of Clusters. III. The Most Metal-Rich Open Cluster, NGC 6253

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The shared properties of distance, age, and composition for stars within a cluster supply justification for their study within the context of stellar and galactic evolution. An example of how a well-defined and homogeneously-analyzed cluster sample can shed light on galactic evolution is provided by Twarog et al. (1997), wherein analysis of over 70 open clusters demonstrates the existence of structure within the galactic abundance gradient, structure that has been corroborated most recently through the use of Cepheids by Andrievsky et al. (2002b). Despite the unusual combination of high precision and sample size for the collected data, critical regions of the galactic disk remain inadequately sampled. Moreover, only a modest fraction of the open clusters within observational reach have their fundamental parameters determined to a degree of reliability that can satisfy the needs of Galactic studies tied to the global characteristics of the population.

Though the number of broad-band photometric surveys of individual clusters with color-magnitude diagrams (CMD) of sufficient precision has increased significantly in the last five years with the expanded availability of larger-format CCD’s, the interpretation of these data has been hampered by the absence of a comparable progress in determinations of the critically important properties of reddening and metallicity, linchpins to age and distance. Attempts to constrain the parameters using CMD morphology and comparison to theoretically synthesized CMD’s have had some success (Tosi et al., 1991; Bonifazi et al., 1990; Gozzoli et al., 1996; Marconi et al., 1997), though the answers drawn from different models do not always concur and the uncertainties in the parameters remain larger than desirable for many projects.

To improve this situation for individual clusters and to expand and test the sample delineating the galactic structure outlined by Twarog et al. (1997), a program of CCD photometry of open clusters on the extended Strömgren intermediate-band ($`uvbyCa`$) and H$`\beta `$ systems has been undertaken. Examples of the initial work illustrating the value and precision attainable with careful analysis have been given for the metal-rich open cluster, IC 4651 (Anthony-Twarog & Twarog, 2000a, hereinafter referred to as Paper I) and the globular cluster, NGC 6397 (Anthony-Twarog & Twarog, 2000b, hereinafter referred to as Paper II). These clusters were selected to sample the extreme range of cluster parameters with objects that had been reasonably well-studied by other photometric and spectroscopic means. Our first program cluster with no intermediate-band photometric work or reliable high-resolution spectroscopic abundances is the distant open cluster, NGC 6253.

NGC 6253 has been the focus of three broad-band photometric surveys to date, Bragaglia et al. (1997), Piatti et al. (1998), and Sagar et al. (2001) (hereinafter referred to as BR, PI, and SA, respectively). It is of interest because, as carefully demonstrated in BR, the cluster is located toward the galactic center ($`l^{II}=336\mathrm{°}`$, $`b^{II}=6\mathrm{°}`$), significantly older than the Hyades, and super-solar in metallicity, while exhibiting a richly-populated turnoff and giant branch. Despite the concurrence of opinion regarding the broad features of the cluster, examination of previous work reveals a wide range for the key parameters of interest. Previously published work produces plausible reddening estimates ranging from $`E(BV)`$ = 0.20 to 0.32, metallicity from solar abundance to almost triple the solar value, and an age from 2 to 5 Gyr; we will discuss the specifics of each property and its past derivation in Sec. 4. Since traditional linear abundance gradients imply a change in the mean \[Fe/H\] of less than 0.3 dex over a 4 kpc galactocentric range, definitive evaluation of any structure within 2 kpc of the sun requires \[Fe/H\] data of significantly higher accuracy than is currently available for NGC 6253, for a large number of clusters. Moreover, a definitive metallicity is important in defining the value of the cluster as a template for younger, metal-rich, extragalactic populations and as a potential source of stars with planetary systems.

The underlying basis for the use of intermediate-band photometry is simple. The brighter observational limit imposed by the narrower bandpasses is, in part, compensated by the higher precision with which one may disentangle the stellar parameters. DDO photometry (Twarog et al., 1997) recommends itself because it focuses on the brightest stars within a cluster, the red giants, and the calibration of the system is exquisitely tied to the spectroscopic abundances of the extensive sample of field giants near the sun (Twarog & Anthony-Twarog, 1996). The weaknesses of the system are the small sample of giants often present in many poorly populated clusters observed within a field rich with cluster non-members and the possibility that post-main-sequence evolution may alter the atmospheric abundances of some stars.

The extended Strömgren and H$`\beta `$ systems exploit the rich population of main sequence stars and have been well-calibrated for spectral types ranging from B through G (Crawford, 1975, 1978, 1979; Olsen, 1988; Schuster & Nissen, 1989), the temperature range typified by the turnoff in most open clusters. No open cluster has been identified that exhibits a range in \[Fe/H\] or a difference in \[Fe/H\] between the turnoff stars and the red giants when the abundances are based primarily upon the Fe lines. The larger population of main sequence stars can lead to easier identification of a probable sample of cluster members while reducing the standard error of the mean for the final cluster parameters. The multiple indices also enhance the elimination of probable non-members from the final sample. For an example of how successful this approach can be for a typical open cluster, the reader is referred to Paper I.

Section 2 contains the details of the CCD observations and their reduction and transformation to the standard system. In Sec. 3 we discuss the CMD and begin the process of identifying the sample of probable cluster members. Sec. 4 contains the derivation of the fundamental cluster parameters of reddening and metallicity. In Sec. 5, these are combined with broad-band data to derive the distance and age through comparisons with theoretical isochrones. Sec. 6 summarizes our conclusions in the context of our current understanding of the evolution of the galactic abundance gradient. Preliminary results for NGC 6253 presented in Twarog et al. (2002) are superseded by this discussion.

## 2 The Data

### 2.1 Observations

The new photometric data for NGC 6253 were obtained using the Cassegrain-focus CCD imager on the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s 0.9-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. We used a Tektronix 2048 by 2048 detector at the $`f/13.5`$ focus of the telescope, modulated by CTIO’s $`4^{\prime \prime }\times 4^{\prime \prime }`$ $`uvby`$ filters and our own $`3^{\prime \prime }\times 3^{\prime \prime }`$ H$`\beta `$ and $`Ca`$ filters. The field size is $`13.5^{}`$ on a side. Frames were obtained in April 1999 with all filters except the H$`\beta `$ filters; frames obtained in May 2000 included all bandpasses except $`Ca`$. In all, 11 to 22 frames were acquired of NGC 6253 for each filter with the following total exposure times: 37, 63, 71 and 159 minutes for $`y,b,v`$ and $`u`$, 83 minutes for $`Ca`$, and 40 and 183 minutes for the H$`\beta `$ wide and narrow filters.

Standard IRAF routines were used to perform initial processing at the telescope; a fairly comprehensive description of these steps and the procedures by which we merge photometry based on profile-fitting algorithms may be found in Paper I.

### 2.2 Reduction and Transformation

The procedures outlined in Paper I yield photometric indices of very high internal precision. We outline here the steps taken to transform these instrumental indices to the standard systems, and will separately note specific issues pertaining to the reduction of $`uvby`$ indices, $`hk`$ indices, and H$`\beta `$ indices following this overview.

In addition to our program fields, we observe standard stars selected from the photometry catalogs of Olsen (1983, 1993, 1994) and Twarog & Anthony-Twarog (1995) and in open clusters on each photometric night. These are used to determine extinction solutions for each photometric night for all indices other than H$`\beta `$. Aperture photometry is obtained for every standard star and program cluster on all but the deepest exposure frames using aperture radii ranging from 8 to 13 pixels centered on the star, along with sky measurements using annuli enclosing a comparable area. Following correction for atmospheric extinction and the exclusion of stars with the most serious crowding, average magnitudes in each bandpass are constructed for all stars. From the mean magnitudes, mean indices are constructed for stars in every field on each night. For a program cluster observed on a photometric night, the mean difference between the aperture photometry and the profile-fit-based photometry is then determined for each index based on a selected sample of relatively uncrowded stars.

In determining the transformation equations between the instrumental and standard system, our preferred approach is to use the photometry within the open clusters to establish the slopes of the transformation relations and, if possible, appeal to photometric catalog values of single-star standards to establish the zero point of the calibration equations. With these transformation equations, indices constructed from all the frames may be converted to standard values. By inference, the profile-fit photometry may be calibrated with the same relations.

H$`\beta `$ frames of NGC 6253, as well as several standard fields in open clusters, were obtained on the night of May 2, 2000. The transformation equation for conversion of aperture-based H$`\beta `$ indices is defined collectively by 74 stars in NGC 6231 (Shobbrook, 1983), NGC 6664 (Schmidt, 1982), M67 (Nissen et al., 1987) and NGC 6633 (Schmidt, 1976). The standard H$`\beta `$ indices range in value from 2.53 to 2.87, leading to an equation of the form $`\beta =1.157\beta _i`$, with a dispersion of only $`\pm `$0.015 mag about the mean line. The mean difference between aperture-based H$`\beta `$ indices from this night and the H$`\beta `$ indices in the profile-fit-based photometry set of NGC 6253 was determined with a standard error of the mean $`0.001`$ mag.

The only $`Ca`$ frames of NGC 6253 taken on a photometric night were obtained on April 22, 1999. Transformation of the $`hk`$ indices is tied to the observations of field stars found in the catalog of Twarog & Anthony-Twarog (1995). Data from several nights in April 1999 and May 2000 were combined and analyzed, leading to a transformation relation of the form $`hk=1.05hk_i`$. Four field star standards observed on April 22, 1999 established the zero point for the equation calibrating the $`hk`$ indices specifically for that night, with a standard error in the mean for the intercept of $`\pm `$0.012. The mean difference between the aperture-defined $`hk`$ indices and the profile-fit-based $`hk`$ indices was derived with a standard error in the mean value of only $`\pm `$0.005. Comparable differences between aperture photometry and profile-fit-based values for other Strömgren indices were determined with precisions indicated by standard errors of the mean for $`V`$ and $`by`$ of 0.002 mag, and 0.003 mag for $`m_1`$ and $`c_1`$.

Calibration of $`by`$, $`m_1`$ and $`c_1`$ indices is generally challenging, in part because the parameter space of color, abundance, and luminosity class must be delicately covered by a wide range of standards. Following normal practice, we break the calibration equation solutions at a color of $`(by)_0=0.42`$. While past experience has shown that cooler dwarfs generally have a slope for the $`by`$ transformation relation that is shallower than that for the warmer dwarfs and cool giants, no cool dwarf members of NGC 6253 are expected to be within our survey sample. The transformation equation for warmer dwarfs was applied to NGC 6253 stars with $`by`$ less than 0.62, approximately the intrinsic color break of 0.42 with a reddening adjustment of 0.20. Transformation equations for $`m_1`$ and $`c_1`$ indices for redder stars, presumed to be giants, were determined separately based on field star standards from the Olsen (1993) catalog.

Several open clusters observed on May 4 and 5, 2000 were used to delineate the form of these calibration equations. Specific references are NGC 6231 (Shobbrook, 1983), NGC 6633 (Schmidt, 1976), M67 (Nissen et al., 1987) and NGC 3680 (Nissen, 1988). In addition, observations on April 22, 1999 in IC 4651 were used to calibrate NGC 6253 indices obtained from aperture photometry on that night by comparison to values published in Paper I. NGC 6253 was not observed on May 5, 2000. Field star standards from the catalogs of Olsen (1983) and Olsen (1993) were observed on both nights in May 2000 and form the basis of the intercepts for the calibration equations.

It became apparent that the conditions for part of the night 4 May 2000 must have deteriorated from ideally photometric. For example, the standard deviations for the calibration equation zero point values, based on nine field star standards observed on that night, were distressingly large, 0.04 at best and as high as 0.07 for $`m_1`$. We constructed an independent check of the calibration of Strömgren indices based on the April 22, 1999 photometry in IC 4651 and several field star standards. We were able to estimate corrections to the zero points for the transformation equations with precisions indicated by the following standard errors of the mean for the zero points: $`\pm `$0.002 for $`V`$ and $`by`$, and $`\pm `$0.004 for $`m_1`$ and $`c_1`$.

Final photometric values for the stars brighter than $`V18.3`$ are given in Table 1. Pixel coordinates for the stars are on the (X,Y) system for the cluster developed by WEBDA and WEBDA identification numbers are provided whenever available. The standard errors of the mean as a function of $`V`$ are presented in Fig. 1 for all of the indices. The errors are derived from the frame-to-frame dispersion for each filter used to construct the indices rather than the formal errors from IRAF. Clearly, the internal errors are excellent for $`V17.5`$ for all indices.

### 2.3 Comparison to Previous Photometry

No intermediate-band photometry on any system has been published for NGC 6253. However, the $`V`$ magnitude derived from the $`y`$ filter can be compared to the published broad-band data. As detailed in the Appendix, there are systematic differences with all the published $`V`$ photometry, though our data are located near the approximate mean of the three photometric surveys. All of the broad-band studies exhibit non-negligible offsets with respect to each other and, in one case, a significant color dependence is found among the residuals. We will return to this point in Sec. 5 when we discuss the cluster match to the theoretical isochrones.

## 3 The Color-Magnitude Diagram: Thinning the Herd

The CMD for all stars with $`V`$ brighter than $`18.3`$ and at least 2 observations each in $`b`$ and $`y`$ is presented in Fig. 2. Filled circles are stars brighter than $`V`$ = 17 that have larger than expected variation in $`V`$ at their magnitude and have at least 5 observations in $`y`$ and multiple observations in all filters. The gross features of the cluster CMD are observable and confirm the results found in the broad-band surveys. The turnoff near $`V15`$ exhibits a sharp hook to the red below a well-defined gap. The subgiant branch is well populated, sloping downward and to the red. The red giant clump is easily identifiable near $`V12.6`$, with a bright red giant branch that may extend to $`V11.3`$ before turning over. The morphological resemblance to another definitive old open cluster, M67, is striking.

Unfortunately, due to its galactic location, contamination of the CMD by non-members is a dominant problem for any analysis. Below $`V`$ = 16.5, the cluster main sequence merges into the amorphous band defined by background field stars, while field subgiants and giants dominate for $`by`$ redder than 0.7 and $`V15`$. The problem is similar in nature to that faced in Paper I for IC 4651, with the complication that the cluster turnoff lies much closer in color and magnitude to the field star distribution due to the greater distance of NGC 6253.

As discussed in Paper I, the focus of our analysis of this cluster, and all clusters in the program, is the precise determination of the primary cluster characteristics of reddening and metallicity followed, when possible, by distance and age. Photometric derivation of these parameters requires color indices of high precision for single-star members of the cluster. If we have achieved the photometric accuracy we require, the dominant issue becomes the isolation of highly probable members of the cluster from the field distribution. Procedures that identify and eliminate probable non-members are acceptable even if they remove some cluster members. Keeping non-members out is more important than keeping members in since completeness of the sample is not a issue. In the sections that follow, we will refine the sample in Fig. 2 to reach a point where the probable cluster members alone define the features of the CMD.

### 3.1 Thinning the Herd: The Radial Distribution

In the absence of kinematic information to establish cluster membership, the next best option is to use the radial distribution of cluster stars to select the area with the highest proportion of members. Previous photometric surveys have established estimates of the cluster diameter, beginning with an estimate of $`5^{}`$ from Lyngå (1987). The limiting field size of CCD’s has been a factor in subsequent photometric studies. BR studied two overlapping fields that were $`6.8^{}\times 6.8^{}`$, one centered on the cluster and one north of center. SA imaged a cluster field $`2.1^{}\times 3.3^{}`$ along with a comparison field $`10^{}`$ to $`15^{}`$ away from the cluster center. PI observed a field approximately $`4^{}\times 4^{}`$. With the exception of BR, the fields studied have been smaller than the proposed cluster diameter and, even in the case of BR, the counts beyond the cluster core cover a small portion of the area around the cluster. The location of the cluster center has been selected by a simple visual fit in the case of BR, while PI and SA fixed the center by adjusting the coordinates to maximize the cluster density profile. The locations found by BR and SA are similar, but differ from that of PI by almost $`1^{}`$.

With a larger field size, we hoped to have an easier time establishing the profile and center of the cluster. Coordinates for stars brighter than limits varying from $`V_{lim}=15.0`$ to 18.0 were used to determine the cluster center which would optimize the concentration of the cluster distribution within the smallest radius. The cluster center we found is similar to that found by BR and SA, though the uncertainty in the exact location seems to be larger than claimed by SA, due to the small number of bright stars defining the center. The cluster blends into the background at a diameter of $`7^{}`$, larger than found by Lyngå (1987).

Due to the modest portion of the CCD field occupied by the cluster, the dominance of the CMD by non-members is easily understood. The cluster excess above background is even smaller for $`V17.5`$, showing an increasing deficiency of lower mass stars compared to expectations from normal luminosity functions. To maximize the percentage of cluster members, our first cut will remove all stars located more than $`100^{\prime \prime }`$ away from the cluster center. Simultaneously, we will identify all stars that have standard errors in the mean for $`by`$ greater than 0.010 for later elimination. The resulting CMD is presented in Fig. 3, where crosses identify stars that fail to meet the error cut.

The primary features of the cluster CMD are significantly enhanced, though confusion caused by field star contamination remains an issue below $`V`$ = 17. Beyond the features noted earlier, one can now identify a binary sequence located about 0.7 mag above the expected position of the main sequence. The exact location of the main sequence is still a source of controversy due to the band of field stars that extends from $`by`$ = 0.55 the region redward of the subgiant branch.

### 3.2 Thinning the Herd: CMD Deviants

Given the high precision of the $`by`$ indices, if the cluster sample dominated that of the field stars, one could define the mean relation for the main sequence in the CMD and exclude all stars which deviated by more than three sigma from the mean, eliminating both field stars and probable binaries. In this situation, where the field stars contribute as much, if not more, to the region of the main sequence, definition of the cluster main sequence can become an exercise in selection bias.

Fortunately, the availability of multiple indices makes the selection process much less subjective. To demonstrate the point, we make use of the filter pair with the largest baseline, $`uy`$. For our next cut, we include stars with $`V`$ brighter than 17.25 and bluer than $`by`$ = 0.7, at least 2 observations each in $`y,b,v`$, and $`u`$ and a standard error of the mean in $`c_1`$ below 0.025 mag. The last constraint guarantees that the error in $`uy`$ is below 0.020. The ($`V`$,$`uy`$) CMD is shown in Fig. 4. The increased temperature sensitivity of $`uy`$ is obvious and allows easy identification of stars that are too blue for their apparent magnitude (field stars), plotted as open triangles in the figure, and stars that are too red (binaries or field stars), plotted as crosses. The success of the process is measurable in Fig. 5, where the traditional CMD for the stars is presented. With one exception, the stars that lie within the binary sequence in the standard CMD have been identified as such from the $`uy`$ index. Elimination of the stars that scatter blueward in the $`uy`$ figure would remove all the scatter to the blue in the standard CMD. Though it is probable that elimination of these deviants from the analysis will sweep away a few true cluster members, the critical point is that the remaining sample contains a high percentage of single stars whose structure and evolution are typical of the cluster as a whole.

## 4 Fundamental Properties: Reddening and Metallicity

The select sample of probable members (filled circles) in Fig. 5 includes 99 stars. Our final restriction is to impose a color cut on the turnoff. Only stars in the color range from $`by`$ = 0.53 to 0.60 will be used to determine the reddening and metallicity. The blue limit removes the blue stragglers from the analysis. Since these stars have, by definition, anomalous evolution, conclusions based upon their photometry are always open to question. The red cutoff removes the evolved stars of the subgiant branch and keeps the sample within a color range where the intrinsic calibrations of the $`uvby`$ system can be expected to produce reliable parameters. The final sample includes 71 stars, none of which have errors in H$`\beta `$ above $`\pm `$0.020; only 2 stars have photometric uncertainty in H$`\beta `$ above $`\pm `$0.015.

### 4.1 Reddening

As discussed in Paper I, derivation of the reddening from intermediate-band photometry is a straightforward, iterative process given reliable estimates of H$`\beta `$ for each star. Briefly, the intrinsic $`by`$ color is derived from the reddening and metallicity-independent H$`\beta `$ index. Since $`by`$ is affected by both metallicity and evolutionary state, the intrinsic value is then adjusted to correct for the differences between the star and the unevolved stars used to define the standard relation linking $`by`$ and H$`\beta `$. Because the indices estimating the metallicity and luminosity are influenced by the reddening, one must iterate the procedure, correcting each stellar index for the derived reddening, calculating a new set of intrinsic indices, luminosities, and metallicities, then re-deriving a revised reddening. The procedure converges quickly. For cluster stars, all members are assumed to have the same reddening and metallicity, so one may calculate the reddening under different fixed assumptions for metallicity, and the metallicity under different fixed assumptions for the reddening. Only one combination of reddening and metallicity will produce mutually consistent calculations.

Since both procedures give effectively identical results, the primary decision is the choice of the standard relation for H$`\beta `$ versus $`by`$ and the adjustments required to correct for metallicity and evolutionary state. The two most commonly used relations are those of Olsen (1988) and Schuster & Nissen (1989). As found in Paper I for IC 4651, both produce very similar but not identical results. We have processed the indices for the 71 stars through both relations and find $`E(by)`$ = 0.192 $`\pm `$ 0.017 (s.d.) with Olsen (1988) and $`E(by)`$ = 0.188 $`\pm `$ 0.015 (s.d.) with Schuster & Nissen (1989). As a compromise, we will take the weighted average of the two and use $`E(by)`$ = 0.190 $`\pm `$ 0.002 (s.e.m.) or $`E(BV)=0.260\pm `$ 0.003 (s.e.m.) in the analysis that follows.

It seems useful to discuss the reliability of the reddening estimate before deriving the metallicity in the next section. Though we have used the turnoff stars alone in the calculation, we can check the consistency of the final value using all the stars in the members sample, i.e., by including the blue stragglers. Fig. 6 shows a plot of the standard relation between H$`\beta `$ and $`by`$, reddened by $`E(by)`$ = 0.190 and superposed upon the observed data for NGC 6253. With the exception of 3 blue stragglers (indicated by filled symbols) that lie systematically above the standard relation, the adjusted curve falls nicely through the mean of the hotter points defined by the A through early F stars. Note that the curve does not pass through points defined by the stars at the turnoff. The reason is that the metallicity effect on the cooler stars is significant and no metallicity correction has been applied to the cooler end of the standard relation. The systematic difference relative to an approximately Hyades metallicity is the first indication of the exceptional metallicity of the cluster.

As for the three stragglers located above the mean relation, the significantly lower reddening estimate implied for these stars is explained if they are foreground stars rather than members of the cluster. This is confirmed by $`c_1`$ indices for these stars which are systematically smaller by approximately 0.1 mag than the expected values at their $`by`$ based upon the rest of the stragglers. If we apply the cluster reddening to these stars, the corrected indices would generate physically implausible combinations of $`(by)_0`$ and $`c_0`$. Moreover, use of the individual reddening values for these stars rather than the adopted cluster value produces metallicity estimates close to those typical of stars in the solar neighborhood, rather than the exceptionally high value found for the cluster.

How does the derived reddening value compare with other estimates? At the galactic coordinates of the cluster, the reddening map of Schlegel et al. (1998) based upon infrared emission by dust gives $`E(BV)`$ = 0.35. Since the cluster is located more than 150 pc away from the galactic plane and the reddening map includes all reddening along the line of site at and beyond the cluster, the difference between the limit and the observed value is understandable.

The derived value falls nicely within the range of $`E(BV)`$ = 0.23 to 0.32 found by BR using comparisons with theoretical cluster CMDs but the agreement may be fortuitous if the problems with the broad-band photometry discussed in the Appendix are tied to the data of BR. The revised values of $`BV`$ from BR transformed to the systems of SA and PI expand the color differential between the giant branch and the turnoff, independent of issues tied to the zero-points, leading to a revision of what age and metallicity combinations supply the optimum fit to the isochrones.

Both PI and SA use multicolor CMDs matched to standard sequences (PI) and theoretical isochrones (SA) to derive $`E(BV)`$ = 0.20 and $`E(VI)`$ of 0.25 to 0.27. PI quote uncertainties of $`\pm `$0.05 mag based upon the internal scatter of the main sequence alone, while SA provide no error estimate. The fact that both investigations produce similar estimates of $`E(BV)`$ and $`E(VI)`$ may be purely fortuitous. PI matches the cluster to a $`BV`$ sequence tied to stars typical of the solar neighborhood, i.e., metallicity less than or equal to solar, while SA fits isochrones with Z = 0.05, more that double solar metallicity. The $`VI`$ diagrams should be relatively insensitive to metallicity effects, but comparison of SA and PI demonstrates a zero-point discrepancy in their $`(VI)`$ colors of 0.14 mag. In summary, while realistic appraisal of the previous cluster reddening analyses indicates an estimate of $`E(BV)`$ = 0.2 $`\pm `$0.1, this result doesn’t offer much value in testing the reliability of the intermediate-band result.

### 4.2 Metallicity from $`m_1`$

Given the reddening of $`E(by)`$ = 0.190, the derivation of \[Fe/H\] from the $`m_1`$ index is a straightforward procedure. The $`m_1`$ index for a star is compared to the standard relation at the same color and the difference between them, adjusted for possible evolutionary effects, is a measure of the relative metallicity. Though the comparison of $`m_1`$ is most commonly done using $`by`$ as the reference color because it is simpler to observe, the preferred reference index is H$`\beta `$ due to its insensitivity to both reddening and metallicity. Changing the metallicity of a star will shift its position in the $`m_1`$ \- $`(by)`$ diagram diagonally, while moving it solely in the vertical direction in $`m_1`$ \- H$`\beta `$. Moreover, reddening errors do not lead to correlated errors in both $`m_1`$ and H$`\beta `$.

The primary weakness of metallicity determination with intermediate-band filters is the sensitivity of \[Fe/H\] to small changes in $`m_1`$; the typical slope of the \[Fe/H\], $`\delta m_1`$ relation is 11. Even with highly reliable photometry, e.g., $`m_1`$ accurate to $`\pm `$ 0.015 for a faint star, the uncertainty in \[Fe/H\] for an individual star is $`\pm `$0.17 dex from the scatter in $`m_1`$ alone. When potential photometric scatter in H$`\beta `$ and $`c_1`$ are included, errors at the level of $`\pm `$0.2 dex are common. As noted in previous papers in this series, the success of the technique depends upon both high internal accuracy and a large enough sample to bring the standard error of the mean for a cluster down to statistically useful levels, i.e., below 0.10 dex.

Because of the size of the sample, we can minimize the impact of individual points such as binaries and/or the remaining non-members, though they will clearly add to the dispersion. After correcting each star for the effect of $`E(by)`$ = 0.190, the $`m_1`$, $`c_1`$, and H$`\beta `$ values for the 71 core cluster members were run through the metallicity calibration using the relation derived by Olsen (1988) and also applied to the metal-rich open cluster IC 4651 in Paper I. Before discussing the results, it should be noted that the range in $`H\beta `$ among the turnoff sample is small. Since all the stars have approximately the same color, variations in $`m_1`$ should be primarily a product of the evolutionary state, normally measured via $`\delta `$$`c_1`$, the difference between the observed $`c_1`$ and the standard value at the same color. As demonstrated in Nissen et al. (1987) from photoelectric observations of M67, for the cooler F stars, evolution reduces the observed value of $`m_1`$ at a given color, making the more evolved stars appear more metal-deficient. Since this effect occurs exactly within the color range of our sample, we have adjusted the $`m_1`$ indices of the more evolved stars upward by 0.3$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`c_1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`c_1`$ is the mean $`c_1`$ for a star minus the average $`c_1`$ value of the stars fainter than $`V`$ = 16.5. We emphasize that while the brighter stars do, in the mean, have smaller $`m_1`$ and larger $`c_1`$, the correction implied by the above procedure is small and does not completely eliminate the correlation between $`m_1`$ and $`V`$.

From 71 stars, the average $`\delta `$$`m_1`$ is –0.071 $`\pm `$ 0.002 (s.e.m.), which translates into \[Fe/H\] = +0.90 $`\pm `$ 0.03 on a scale where the Hyades has \[Fe/H\] = +0.12. The $`\delta `$$`m_1`$ index and its implied metallicity are unmatched by any star or cluster observed to date within the Milky Way. Though the extreme nature of the estimate casts doubt on its validity, before evaluating what this means, we turn to another metallicity indicator, $`hk`$, as a means of constraining our potential solutions.

### 4.3 Metallicity from $`hk`$

The $`hk`$ index is based upon the addition of the $`Ca`$ filter to the traditional Strömgren filter set, where the $`Ca`$ filter is designed to measure the bandpass which includes the H and K lines of Ca II. The design and development of the $`Caby`$ system have been laid out in a series of papers discussing the primary standards (Anthony-Twarog et al., 1991b), an extensive catalog of field star observations (Twarog & Anthony-Twarog, 1995), and calibrations for both red giants (Anthony-Twarog & Twarog, 1998) and metal-deficient dwarfs (Anthony-Twarog et al., 2000). Though the system was optimally designed to work on metal-poor stars and most of its applications have focused on these stars (Anthony-Twarog et al., 1995; Baird, 1996), early indications that the system retained its metallicity sensitivity for metal-rich F dwarfs have been confirmed by observation of the Hyades and analysis of nearby field stars (Anthony-Twarog et al., 2002).

What makes the $`hk`$ index, defined as $`(Cab)(by)`$, so useful even at the metal-rich end of the scale is that it has half the sensitivity of $`m_1`$ to reddening and approximately twice the sensitivity to metallicity changes, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]/\mathrm{\Delta }hk=`$5.6. The metallicity calibration for F stars derived in Anthony-Twarog et al. (2002) used $`\delta hk`$ defined relative to $`by`$ as the temperature index. To minimize the impact of reddening on metallicity, this calibration has been redone using H$`\beta `$ as the primary temperature index. The Hyades $`hk`$,$`(by)`$ relation has been converted to $`hk`$, H$`\beta `$ through the standard $`(by)`$, H$`\beta `$ relation discussed in Sec. 4.1 and illustrated in Fig. 6. From 50 stars compiled in Anthony-Twarog et al. (2002), one finds

\[Fe/H\]$`=3.51\delta hk(\beta )+0.12`$

with a dispersion of only $`\pm 0.09`$ dex about the mean relation. Though the derived zero-point of the relation was found to be +0.07, it has been adjusted to guarantee a Hyades value of +0.12, the same zero-point used for the $`m_1`$ calibration.

We have derived the cluster metallicity using the $`hk`$ indices for the same 71 stars analyzed above using both $`hk`$ relative to the $`by`$ relation and $`hk`$ relative to H$`\beta `$. In order to be consistent with our approach to $`m_1`$, we have included an evolutionary correction to $`hk`$ of the same manner and size adopted for $`\delta `$$`m_1`$. The necessity for such a correction is confirmed by a plot of the mean $`hk`$ versus $`V`$ where one finds that the more evolved stars have systematically lower values of $`hk`$, though the size of the trend is comparable to that found for $`m_1`$. The results relative to $`(by)`$ and H$`\beta `$ are \[Fe/H\] = +0.84 $`\pm `$ 0.14 (s.d.) and +0.68 $`\pm `$ 0.14 (s.d.), respectively. The first point to note is the significantly smaller size of the dispersion for $`hk`$-based \[Fe/H\] in comparison with $`m_1`$, despite that fact that there are fewer $`Ca`$ frames than $`v`$ frames used in the construction of the indices and the errors in $`hk`$ are comparable to or larger than those for $`m_1`$. This is a direct benefit of the smaller slopes in the calibration curves.

Second, the \[Fe/H\] from the $`(by)`$-based relation is larger by a significant amount, though similar to the $`m_1`$ abundance. The difference is a reflection of the high sensitivity of the \[Fe/H\] to small changes in $`by`$, particularly through the adopted reddening. If we lower the reddening by 0.02, i.e., increase the intrinsic $`by`$ by the same amount, the $`(by)`$-based \[Fe/H\] declines by 0.22 dex. The same reddening adjustment only alters the H$`\beta `$-based \[Fe/H\] by 0.01 dex. Thus, demanding that both approaches give identical results would require a shift of about –0.015 in $`E(by)`$, not an implausible change given the photometric uncertainty. A shift of this size only alters the $`m_1`$-based \[Fe/H\] by 0.07 dex, producing an average for $`hk`$ and $`m_1`$ of \[Fe/H\] = +0.75.

Third, though the analyses of $`m_1`$ and $`hk`$ lead to \[Fe/H\] ranging from +0.65 to +0.9, an annoying range given the photometric accuracy, there is complete qualitative agreement in the sense that both indices imply that this cluster is more metal-rich than any cluster or object ever studied on either system. Assuming that the extreme nature of the indices is not the product of photometric error, the unique \[Fe/H\] estimates derived by extrapolation of the standard calibrations brings the validity of their absolute numerical value into obvious question. In short, NGC 6253 resides in unexplored photometric territory and the initial foray into this strange land leads to the conclusion that it cannot be regarded as minor variant on what we are familiar with locally. Since both photometric systems have been tested for stars up to \[Fe/H\] = +0.3, it seems reasonable to assume that the cluster abundance is, at least, this high. As a simple compromise, we will assume that \[Fe/H\] lies somewhere between +0.4 and +0.6.

Before discussing the age and distance determination, the effects of errors in the photometry should be investigated. It has already been noted above that a small shift in the reddening would help to bring the photometric results into better agreement, though still at a high value of \[Fe/H\]. Small errors in $`E(by)`$ can result from independent errors in H$`\beta `$, $`by`$ or both, or from a failure of the intrinsic color calibration at high \[Fe/H\]. Likewise, one could make the claim that the high metallicity is a product of errors in the zero-points for the $`m_1`$ and $`hk`$ transformations.

The weakness in most explanations that attempt to resolve the question by citing an error in an individual index or parameter is that they only resolve a portion of the problem. For example, a zero-point error in $`m_1`$ has little impact on $`hk`$. Adjusting the reddening due to a claim that the intrinsic color relation underestimates the metallicity effect on $`by`$ would significantly alter metallicity indices tied to $`by`$, but have little impact on those based upon H$`\beta `$. The only exception to this rule would be an error in the zero-point for the H$`\beta `$ transformation. If we adjust the H$`\beta `$ indices by –0.030, the cluster reddening declines by the same amount. The combined effect on the metallicity is to lower \[Fe/H\] from $`m_1`$(H$`\beta `$), $`hk`$(H$`\beta )`$, and $`hk`$($`by`$) to +0.47, +0.33, and +0.47, respectively. The agreement among the indices is better and at a somewhat lower metallicity, but it still places NGC 6253 above the current limit of the metallicity scale. We also emphasize that every test we have made to check the zero-point of the H$`\beta `$ photometry, night-to-night comparisons, standard star observations that bracket the cluster on a given night, indicate that if an offset is required, it must be small and it must make H$`\beta `$ larger, not smaller.

## 5 Fundamental Parameters: Distance and Age

### 5.1 The Broad-Band CMD

Given the reddening and metallicity, the traditional approach to deriving the distance and age is to compare the cluster CMD to a reliably defined set of theoretical isochrones. By reliably defined we mean color transformations and bolometric corrections between the theoretical and the observational plane that reproduce the colors and absolute magnitudes of nearby stars with known temperatures and abundances. From an age standpoint, the critical test is whether or not a star of solar mass, composition, and age resembles the sun. For open clusters of solar and subsolar abundance, the impact of this issue on cluster ages and distances has been emphasized on a variety of occasions (Twarog & Anthony-Twarog, 1989; Twarog et al., 1993; Daniel et al., 1994; Twarog et al., 1995, 1999).

For NGC 6253, two problems immediately arise. First, isochrones are invariably created for broad-band systems and a check of the most recent publications shows that the theoretical isochrones are available on the $`UBVRI`$ system, among others, but not $`uvby`$. Second, though isochrones have been generated with a mass fraction of metals up to five times the solar value, the questions of the related helium fraction and whether or not the metals should be scaled-solar or enhanced in the $`\alpha `$-elements remain open. Moreover, the lack of a significant population of such stars with reliably determined fundamental parameters makes the color transformations an exercise in faith in the validity of extrapolating synthetic colors from model atmosphere codes.

Fortunately, the first problem is easily solved. The $`by`$ index has long been known to correlate well with $`BV`$ at a given \[Fe/H\] with little dependence on evolutionary state. Though one could use the published $`BV`$ data to construct a CMD of cluster members, there are zero-point differences among the broad-band surveys, the photometric accuracy of the surveys is not uniform, and the surveys only include stars within the core of the cluster. Instead, we chose to transform our $`by`$ data to $`BV`$. The construction of the mean broad-band photometric indices through the merger of the published data is discussed in the Appendix; for reasons noted there, we have chosen the $`BV`$ zero-point and scale of SA as the base for the merger. Using $`BV`$ and $`by`$ for all the stars brighter than $`V`$ = 16.5 common to the merged $`BV`$ sample and our $`by`$ data, linear relations were derived between the two indices. To optimize the color transformation, the sample was subdivided into three color regimes, with the transition points at $`by`$ = 0.47 and 0.71. Excluding 4 stars with residuals about the mean relation greater than 0.10 mag, the transformation curves over the three color regimes are:

$`by0.47`$, N=30

$`BV`$ = 1.492($`\pm `$0.038)\*$`(by)+0.009(\pm `$0.016)

$`0.47(by)0.71`$, N=264

$`BV`$ = 1.717($`\pm `$0.026)\*$`(by)0.096(\pm `$0.015)

$`(by)0.71`$, N=85

$`BV`$ = 1.464($`\pm `$0.029)\*$`(by)+0.084(\pm `$0.024)

The standard deviations of the residuals about the mean relation for the three regions are 0.017, 0.020, and 0.017 mag, respectively, consistent with a typical uncertainty of 0.015 mag in $`BV`$ and less than 0.010 mag in $`by`$. A plot of the data and the mean relations is shown in Fig. 7.

To define the cluster CMD, we restrict our sample to stars within the core for $`13.0V17.25`$ with a standard error in the mean for $`by`$ below 0.010 (see Fig. 3). The only additional exclusion will be the stars identified in Fig. 4 by triangles and tagged as nonmembers based upon a $`uy`$ index that places them blueward of the cluster main sequence. For $`V13.0`$, all stars observed within the entire field will be used in an effort to strengthen the definition of the red giant clump and the giant branch.

### 5.2 The Isochrones

The two primary sets of theoretical isochrones available in an array of broad-band systems, metallicities, and ages are those of Girardi et al. (2002) (hereinafter referred to as PAD) and Lejeune & Schaerer (2001) (hereinafter referred to as GEN). Based upon the many comparisons, including our own (Anthony-Twarog et al., 1994; Daniel et al., 1994; Anthony-Twarog et al., 1991a; Twarog et al., 1995), between open clusters and past and present generations of isochrones, we will only make use of isochrones that include convective overshoot mixing. On a scale where solar metallicity is Z = 0.019 and Y = 0.273, PAD supply isochrones with (Y,Z) = (0.32,0.040) and (0.39, 0.070) with either scaled-solar abundances or $`\alpha `$-enhanced abundances. In contrast, the GEN set assumes solar (Y,Z) = (0.30,0.02) and has isochrones available for (0.34,0.04) and (0.48,0.10). While the latter metallicity is closest to the cluster abundance implied by the photometry, the combination with the high helium abundance produced a CMD morphology that was so discrepant in comparison with the cluster that inclusion of the set added nothing to the discussion. While in the past we have attempted to test the zero-points of the isochrones by comparison to the sun and/or field stars (Twarog et al., 1999), there is no way of knowing if a difference found between theory and observation at solar metallicity transfers directly to isochrones at \[Fe/H\] = +0.3 to +0.6. Because we are fixing the reddening at $`E(BV)`$ = 0.26, differences among the derived ages and distances are solely a product of the differences among the models, both in assumed composition and in the transformations between the theoretical and the observational plane.

For the first isochrone fit, we use the GEN models for (Y,Z) = (0.34, 0.04), equivalent to \[Fe/H\] = +0.3, the low end of the metallicity range potentially applicable to NGC 6253. The isochrones in Fig. 8 have been shifted by +0.26 in $`(BV)`$ and by 11.60 in $`V`$, the apparent distance modulus. Filled circles and crosses are the same core members and probable binaries identified in Fig. 4. Open triangles are the additional data from the core of the cluster outside the color range of Fig. 4 and squares are the points outside the core brighter than $`V`$ = 13.0. The superposed isochrones have ages of 3.2, 3.55, and 4.0 Gyrs. The match to the isochrones at the turnoff and the giant branch is very good, though the curvature of the main sequence turnoff is slightly larger than predicted by the models. Because of the inclusion of the brighter stars over the entire field, the giant branch can now be mapped to the models well above the level of the clump at $`V`$ = 12.7. The overall fit of the data implies an age between 3.4 and 4.0 Gyr, so we will adopt 3.7 $`\pm `$ 0.3 as the value for these models.

The next set of models will be those of PAD with scaled-solar abundances and (Y,Z) = (0.32, 0.04) or \[Fe/H\] = +0.32. Despite the similarities in \[Fe/H\] to the isochrones of Fig. 8, a match to the turnoff and main sequence requires an apparent modulus of 12.30 in Fig. 9. The ages of the superposed isochrones are 2.0, 2.5, and 3.2 Gyrs. The overall quality of the fit is significantly reduced. The turnoff exhibits the same difference in curvature found in Fig. 8, but the subgiant branch lies between the two older tracks while the color of the turnoff is between the two younger. More important, the color of the isochrone giant branches is too red by about 0.2 mag in $`BV`$ and the red giant clump is too faint compared to the observations by 0.6 mag. If one reduces the reddening to $`E(BV)`$ = 0.20, the apparent modulus is lowered to 11.95, producing a consistent match between the subgiant branch and the turnoff color, but leaving the clump too faint by 0.25 mag and the giant branch of the isochrones too red by about 0.08 mag.

The next alternative is the PAD models with (Y,Z) = (0.32,0.04) but enhanced-$`\alpha `$ elements. The results are shown in Fig. 10 for ages of 2.0, 2.5, and 3.2 Gyrs and an apparent modulus of 12.05. In contrast with the previous isochrones, the match from the main sequence through the base of the giant branch is effectively perfect in magnitude and color. The curvature of the turnoff is exactly as predicted. The giant branch of the isochrones is still too red by between 0.03 and 0.06 mag, but the clump is much closer in luminosity to the observed data. The age of the cluster is easily constrained to be 2.5 $`\pm `$ 0.1 Gyr.

The last match shown in Fig. 11 is that for the PAD models, $`\alpha `$-enhanced, with (Y,Z) = (0.39,0.07) or \[Fe/H\] = +0.57. The adopted apparent modulus is 12.15 and the isochrones have ages of 1.0, 1.4, and 2.0 Gyr. As in Fig. 9, the quality of the fit is disappointing, particularly since this represents an overall metallicity closest to that defined by the photometric indices. The observations of the turnoff and subgiant branch cannot be reconciled with a single age and the discrepancy between the locations of the giant branch is large, with the usual pattern of the models being too red and the theoretical clump too faint. As with Fig. 9 one could slightly improve the turnoff match by lowering the reddening and shifting an older isochrone into alignment with the cluster, but the subgiant branch would still be found at a magnitude level inconsistent with the age defined by the color of the turnoff. Use of the scaled-solar isochrones at Z = 0.07 produces an increase in the apparent modulus to 12.55 and an even worse match to the shape of the turnoff and the position of the giant branch.

Given the large range of parameters derived using the various isochrones, can we reach any plausible conclusions regarding the cluster age and distance? The first point to note is that, with the exception of the Z = 0.07 isochrones, the models used were of lower Z than implied by strict acceptance of the photometric metallicities. Increasing Z for a cluster at a fixed reddening leads to a younger age and a larger distance modulus, as confirmed above. If the age and reddening were known, one could derive the metallicity by selecting the isochrones that optimally matched the CMD, a simplified version of the approach taken by BR.

As discussed earlier, the morphology of the CMD, in particular the existence of a main sequence hook and gap, constrains the cluster to be younger than about 5 Gyr. A more quantitative answer can be attained by using the morphological age ratio (MAR) as discussed and revised by Anthony-Twarog & Twarog (1985) and Twarog & Anthony-Twarog (1989). Based upon the ratio of the difference in $`V`$ between the red giant clump and the brightest point at the turnoff and the difference in $`BV`$ between the giant branch at the level of the clump and the vertical turnoff, it has the advantages of being more sensitive to age changes than either difference alone, reddening-independent, and less sensitive to metallicity than either difference alone. From the CMD of NGC 6253, the MAR value is found to be 2.9 (2.8 if one adjusts for the possible difference in reddening for the giants compared to the turnoff stars (Twarog et al., 1997)), slightly smaller than M67 at 3.25 but larger than NGC 6819 at approximately 2.0. If we adopt ages of 4.0 Gyr (Dinescu et al., 1995) and 2.5 Gyr (Rosvick & Vandenberg, 1998) for these clusters, the approximate age of the NGC 6253 is 3.5 Gyr, in very good agreement with the values typically derived by BR from a more involved match to a variety of isochrones. Keeping in mind the caveat that we have no knowledge of how reliable an index such as MAR is for \[Fe/H\] of +0.4 or higher, the GEN isochrones are consistent with this age for the cluster if \[Fe/H\] is increased to +0.4. At this metallicity, the apparent modulus becomes 11.7, leading to $`M_V`$ for the clump of +1.0, consistent with expectation for an older cluster of high metallicity as empirically determined by Twarog et al. (1997).

A unfortunate issue that we cannot resolve is the disagreement between the scaled-solar isochrones of GEN and PAD. Though the GEN models use Y higher by 0.02, the differences in age ($``$ 1 Gyr) and apparent modulus (0.7 mag) seem excessive given the similar values of Z. The lower age defined by the turnoff color is consistent with the discrepancy between the colors of the observed and computed giant branches; the observed CMD morphology requires an older age than allowed by the absolute colors. This explains why artificially lowering the reddening produces a better match to an older isochrone and why increasing Z to 0.07 makes the problem worse. Following the pattern, the predicted $`M_V`$ values of the clump of +0.4 and +0.15 for solar-scaled Z = 0.04 and 0.07, respectively, are inconsistent with a very metal-rich cluster at these ages.

Despite the problems, the PAD isochrones may provide a solution to the entire issue. By far, the best match to the shape of the observed turnoff and subgiant branch was supplied by the $`\alpha `$-enhanced isochrones with Z = 0.04. The improvement over any solar-scaled set may indicate that the true \[Fe/H\] for NGC 6253 is closer to +0.4, but the photometric indices, $`m_1`$ and $`hk`$, give anomalous abundances because the energy distributions of the stars are distorted by the enhanced $`\alpha `$ elements. The morphology of the CMD and the $`M_V`$ of the clump cannot be compared reliably to nearby clusters of the same age because these clusters have predominantly scaled-solar distributions. The $`M_V`$ of the clump with the optimal match of Fig. 10 is +0.65, within the observed range for nearby clusters of the same age and close to the value predicted by the isochrones.

## 6 Summary and Conclusions

The open cluster, NGC 6253, has unusual significance in two ways. It populates a rather rare class of open clusters, old and significantly closer to the center of the Galaxy than the sun. The statistical studies of Janes & Phelps (1994) and Hufnagel & Smith (1994) have demonstrated that, observational difficulties aside, the number of open clusters observed within 7 kpc of the galactic center is so small that the probability for survival beyond 1 Gyr is low; NGC 6253 falls just outside this zone. Second, only the old open cluster NGC 6791 has been identified as having a metallicity significantly higher than the Hyades (Chaboyer et al., 1999), and even this claim has been questioned (Taylor, 2001). Past attempts to quantify the key parameters for NGC 6253 have depended primarily on consistency fits to multicolor, broad-band relations and synthetic CMD’s tied to theoretical isochrones. Though there is a consensus linked to the CMD morphology that the cluster must be 2 to 4 Gyr old and more metal-rich than the sun, narrowing the range has been difficult. Though the source of the disagreement has originated mostly with the different predictions from the various isochrones, a problem repeated in Sec. 5, the limitations imposed by the differences among the photometric surveys must be accounted for. As noted in the Appendix, the absolute answer one derives for the parameters would depend upon which zero-point and which color slope one chooses as the $`correct`$ system for defining the broad-band CMD and color-color plots.

We reiterate one of the chief advantages of the intermediate-band approach because it allows to fix the reddening through H$`\beta `$ with only a weak dependence on the cluster metallicity. Removing this as a free parameter in any match to theoretical isochrones significantly restricts the allowed combinations of metallicity, distance, and age. As has now been demonstrated using IC 4651 (Paper I), NGC 6397 (Paper II), and NGC 6253, it is possible to derive the distance with an internal error of only $`\pm 0.1`$ mag, with internal errors of the mean for $`E(by)`$ and \[Fe/H\] of $`\pm 0.002`$ and $`\pm 0.02`$, even though we cannot guarantee that all non-members and binaries have been eliminated.

Given this precision, how does one explain the extraordinary metallicities implied by both the $`m_1`$ and $`hk`$ indices? The flip side to the internal precision that is achievable is that the primary source of uncertainty in deriving photometric-based parameters from a large statistical sample falls upon the transformations of the instrumental indices to the standard system. The challenge of doing this well, even for an established broad-band system like UBV, is obvious from the comparisons of the data on NGC 6253 as given in the Appendix. However, as noted in Sec. 4, to simultaneously reduce the cluster metallicity by claiming an error in the photometry requires either a conspiracy between $`m_1`$ and $`hk`$ or an error in the common link for the reddening and the both metallicity indicators, H$`\beta `$. Unfortunately, an error of over 0.03 mag would be required to have a significant impact on the metallicity and, even for this change, would produce \[Fe/H\] well above the Hyades.

A probable solution to the question is that the indices are, in fact, close to the truth but their interpretation is based upon a questionable extrapolation of the standard relations for stars with more ”normal” abundances, both in an absolute and a relative sense. This distortion could apply to both the metallicity and the reddening determination, though the size and direction of the effect on the latter variable are unknown. The existence of $`uvby`$ index distortions due to abundance anomalies has been known for over 20 years with CN variations in CH and Ba stars producing anticorrelated changes in $`m_1`$ and $`c_1`$ being a prime example (see, e.g., Bond, 1980; Luck & Bond, 1982). The correlated impact of abundance anomalies on $`m_1`$, $`c_1`$, and $`hk`$ has been documented for field stars (Anthony-Twarog et al., 1991b, 1992) and globular clusters like M22 (Anthony-Twarog et al., 1995) and $`\omega `$ Cen (Rey et al., 2000), but the objects under discussion have been metal-poor giants contained within systems that exhibit star to star variations, either due to inhomogeneities at the time of formation or variations in the evolutionary impact of post-main-sequence internal adjustments. If the source of the anomalous indices in NGC 6253 is an enhanced distribution of $`\alpha `$-elements, it is common to all the stars in the cluster and must be the product of galactic chemical evolution. To our knowledge, NGC 6253 is the first open cluster to exhibit potential evidence for a non-scaled-solar element distribution.

How does this solution mesh with observations of the Galactic disk interior to the sun? Two observational pieces of evidence lend some support to this option, though the significance of each remains indeterminate either because the result is too recent to be considered established or because the conclusions remain controversial. One piece of corroborative evidence is supplied by spectroscopic analysis of Cepheids interior to the solar circle by Andrievsky et al. (2002a), indicating that Cepheids that lie more than 1.5 kpc closer to the galactic center than the sun have \[Fe/H\] between +0.2 and +0.4, significantly higher than those found in the solar neighborhood. From simple chemical evolution models, the dramatically higher \[Fe/H\] should be typical of recently formed stars within this galactocentric radius. It must be emphasized that though the error bars on \[Fe/H\] are small, so is the sample. If this inner discontinuity is real, it needs to be confirmed with a larger sample extending closer to the galactic center and an explanation for its apparent absence from HII region analyses (Henry & Worthey, 1999) would be useful.

Another piece of the puzzle is supplied by another well-studied, older open cluster located at a galactocentric distance comparable to NGC 6253 – NGC 6791, with a controversial history of reddening, metallicity, and age estimation. The most recent comprehensive analysis of the cluster is given by Chaboyer et al. (1999), where CMD comparisons to theoretical isochrones restrict the cluster metallicity to \[Fe/H\] = +0.4 $`\pm `$ 0.1, in excellent agreement with the sole high dispersion spectroscopic abundance analysis of a horizontal branch star by Peterson & Green (1998). (For an alternative view of this discussion, see Taylor (2001).) If the single spectroscopic result can be trusted as typical of the cluster, it is intriguing to note that the star shows enhancements relative to solar ratios of Mg, Si, Na, and N, but not Ca. Even accepting the high and enhanced metallicity for NGC 6791, its unique properties within the cluster sample, combined with its highly eccentric orbit (Scott et al., 1995), have led some to question where it fits within the population mix of the Galaxy, thin disk, thick disk, or bulge. If the last alternative is correct, the cluster is not relevant to understanding the evolution of the disk. If our conjecture regarding the metallicity distribution of NGC 6253 is correct, a trend of high metallicity beginning at least 8 Gyr ago and extending to the present appears established for the disk interior to $``$7 kpc from the galactic center, keeping in mind that the current location for the clusters may not be representative of where they formed.

The progress in this project would not have been possible without the time made available by the TAC and the invariably excellent support provided by the staff at CTIO. NDL gratefully acknowledges the summer support provided by the Tombaugh Fund at the University of Kansas. The cluster basic parameters project has been helped by support supplied through the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas and from the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

## Appendix A Broad-Band Photometric Merger

Broad-band CCD data are available from the three photometric surveys with $`UBVRI`$ included in BR and SA, and $`BVI`$ found in PI. SA supply a summary of the differences in the indices among the various studies, finding significant offsets for a number of the colors. The risks in the standard approach of averaging the residuals for all the stars in such comparisons are:

(a) The residuals may be color-dependent and will not show significant variation with $`V`$ if the color range is large at all $`V`$, though the dispersion will be increased;

(b) The number of stars and the errors invariably increase with increasing $`V`$. Real trends among the residuals may remain hidden if they exist at a level comparable to the errors among the faintest stars.

The first indications of a potential problem in the broad-band data arose during our attempts to compare our $`V`$ data, tied to the $`y`$ filter, with the broad-band sources. Using all the stars in common, SA noted systematic differences in $`V`$ in the sense: (SA - BR) = –0.13 $`\pm `$ 0.10 for 437 stars between $`V`$ = 11 and 21 and (SA - PI) = –0.07 $`\pm `$ 0.05 for 115 stars between $`V`$ = 11 and 18. The residuals appear reasonably consistent with the errors quoted by the investigations since the samples tend to be dominated by the fainter range of the $`V`$ distributions. Similar comparisons were made between our $`V`$ data and the above investigations and it became apparent that in the case of BR, while the internal errors were the best of the three studies, a color dependence existed among the residuals in $`V`$.

To avoid potential confusion caused by the inclusion of fainter stars with larger errors, the color dependence for each survey was tested using only stars brighter than $`V`$ = 16. Table 2 summarizes the statistics for the comparisons, including the number of stars in each sample, the number of stars excluded for deviating by more than 0.1 mag from the mean of the residuals, the color relation derived in the sense (Table 1 - study) $`=[a\times (BV)]+b`$, the correlation coefficient, R, the dispersion in the residuals for $`V`$ brighter than 16 after correcting for offsets and color terms, and the residuals after correction for stars in common at all magnitudes. The residuals for the transformed $`V`$ as a function of $`V`$ for all three studies are shown in Fig. 12.

The internal errors for BR are excellent, with an increase of only about one-third in the dispersion of the residuals in going from the brighter stars ($`\sigma =0.016`$) to the entire sample ($`\sigma =0.021`$). In contrast, both SA and PI exhibit a 50 % growth between the bright stars and the entire sample and a larger dispersion in both cases than found for BR. It should be noted that the offset and dispersion in $`V`$ found by SA in their comparison with PI are in excellent agreement with the relative values derived from the data in Table 2. Unfortunately, no two photometric studies to date produce $`V`$ consistent with each other at the 0.01 mag level, though our system lies near the mean of the broad-band $`V`$ data.

Though no simple comparison is available between the remaining $`uvby`$ colors and the broad-band filters, the broad-band indices can be of use in refining the cluster parameters, particularly since theoretical isochrones are generally available on such systems. To optimize the effectiveness of such analyses, a decision was made to merge all the data from the published surveys. Because the photometry in all cases has been calibrated by transforming each magnitude from an instrumental system to the standard system using an offset and a color term prior to calculating the color indices, the published color indices were returned to individual magnitudes and the differences between the magnitudes in each filter calculated. The residuals were then checked for an offset and any evidence of a color term. Because it had the largest overlap with the two remaining studies, the photometry of BR was used as the reference source, though it was not adopted as the standard system. The reason is that the color term found for $`V`$ carries over to an even greater degree in $`B`$, as summarized in Table 2. The size of the color term for $`B`$ is large, but identical from the comparisons with SA and PI. Moreover, the size of the term is comparable to the color term derived by BR in transforming the instrumental $`B`$ magnitudes to the standard system, a color term that is dramatically larger for $`B`$ than any other filter, including $`U`$.

For the standard colors, the photometry of SA has been chosen by applying the same zero-point shift as used in transforming $`V`$ to our system to all the broad-band filters. Color terms were only included in transforming the $`V,B,U,`$ and $`R`$ data of BR to the standard system. In all other cases, the color term was set to zero and a simple offset rederived from the data used to generate Table 2. The magnitudes for each filter were then merged, giving the photometry of BR twice the weight of the photometry of SA and PI individually.


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# Correlations between  and multiplicity in a single BFKL Pomeron 11footnote 1Talk given by C. Merino. 22footnote 2Contribution to the Proceedings of the XXXII International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics (ISMD), Alushta, Crimea (Ukraine), 7-13 September 2002, World Scientific.

## 1 Introduction

Strong correlations are observed experimentally between the average $`p_T`$ and multiplicities of particles produced in high-energy hadronic collisions . Average $`p_T`$ grows with multiplicity. To interpret this fact it is tacitly assumed that with only one hard collision there are no correlations between $`<p_T>`$ and multiplicity. Theoretically this assumption can only be tested within the Balitskii-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) dynamics, which presents a detailed description of particle (actually jet) production at high energies under certain simplifying assumptions (a fixed small coupling constant). The present calculation is aimed to see if there exist correlations between $`<p_T>`$ and the number of produced jets in the hard Pomeron described by the BFKL chain of interacting reggeized gluons . We limit ourselves to the leading order BFKL model.

## 2 The Formalism

The BFKL equation for the amputated BFKL amplitude, $`f(y,k)`$, when $`y`$ is the rapidity and $`k`$ is the two-dimensional transverse momentum of the virtual (Reggeized) gluon, may be written in the form

$$f(y,k)=f^{(0)}(y,k)+\overline{\alpha }_s_0^y𝑑y_1\frac{d^2k_1}{\pi q^2}\left(\frac{k^2}{k_1^2}f(y_1,k_1)f(y,k)\theta (k^2q^2)\right),$$
(1)
where $`\overline{\alpha }_s=3\alpha _s/\pi `$ and $`q=kk_1`$ is the transverse momentum of the emitted (real) gluon.

Defining as an observable jet a real gluon with $`q^2\mu ^2`$, one splits the integration over momenta and thus the integration kernel in (1) into two parts, a resolved one, $`K_R`$, corresponding to emitted gluons with $`q^2>\mu ^2`$, and an unresolved one, $`K_{UV}`$, which combines emission of gluons with $`q^2<\mu ^2`$ and the subtraction term in (1). Exclusive probabilities to produce $`n`$ jets are obtained by introducing $`n`$ operators $`K_R`$ between the Green functions of the BFKL equations with kernel $`K_{UV}`$ . If one presents the full gluon distribution $`f`$ as a sum of contributions $`f_n`$ from the production of $`n`$ jets then one gets a recursive relation

$$f_n(y)=_0^y𝑑y_1K(yy_1)f_{n1}(y_1),$$
(2)
where $`K(y)`$ is an $`y`$-dependent operator in the transverse momentum space

$$K(y)=e^{yK_{UV}}K_R.$$
(3)
Eq. (2) allows one to successively calculate the relative probabilities to produce $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$ jets starting from the no-jet contribution.

The exclusive physical probabilities to observe $`n`$ jets are obtained by convoluting $`f_n`$ with the gluon distribution in the projectile (the projectile impact factor). Both the impact factors of the target and of the projectile should vanish as $`k0`$.

## 3 The Calculation

We are interested in the average values of $`<q>_n`$ in the observed jets, provided their number $`n`$ is fixed. The momentum $`k`$ which serves as an argument of $`f(y,k)`$ refers to the virtual gluon, and not to the emitted one, whose momentum $`q`$ is hidden inside the kernel $`K_R`$. Therefore to find an average of any quantity $`\varphi (q)`$ depending on the emitted real jet momentum, one has to introduce the function $`\varphi (q)`$ into the integral defining $`K_R`$, thus changing the kernel $`K_R`$ to the kernel $`K_{av}`$:

$$\left(K_{av}f\right)(k)=\overline{\alpha _s}k^2\frac{d^2k_1}{\pi q^2k_1^2}\theta (q^2\mu ^2)\varphi (q)f(k_1).$$
(4)
With $`n`$ jets, one has to substitute one of the $`n`$ operators $`K_R`$ which generate the jets by $`K_{av}`$, take a sum of all such substitutions, and divide by $`n`$. One has further to integrate over all momenta of the virtual gluon $`k`$ multiplied by the projectile impact factor, and normalize the result to the total probability to have $`n`$ jets. To formalize this recipe we introduce a generalized operator in the virtual gluon momentum space

$$K_1(y)=e^{yK_{UV}}[K_R+K_{av}].$$
(5)
Let the function $`F(y,k)`$ obey the equation

$$F(y)=f_0(y)+_0^y𝑑y_1K_1(yy_1)F(y_1).$$
(6)
One can split the function $`F`$ into a sum of contributions $`F_{nm}`$ corresponding to the action of $`n`$ operators $`K_1`$, out of which $`m=0,1,\mathrm{}n`$, are operators $`K_{av}`$ (evidently $`F_{n0}=f_n`$). We are interested in the contribution $`F_{n1}g_n`$ which contains a single operator $`K_{av}`$. The average value of interest is determined by

$$<\varphi (q)>_n=\frac{1}{n}\frac{(dk^2/k^4)h(k)g_n(y,k)}{(dk^2/k^4)h(k)f_n(y,k)}.$$
(7)
In analogy with Eq. (2), one easily sets up a recursion relation for $`g_n`$:

$$g_n=_0^y𝑑y_1K(yy_1)g_{n1}(y_1)+_0^y𝑑y_1e^{(yy_1)K_{UV}}K_{av}f_{n1}(y_1),$$
(8)
with the initial condition $`g_0(y)=0`$. Together with (2), this relation allows one to calculate the function $`g_n`$ for $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and then to use (7) to find the desired averages.

The concrete choice of $`\varphi (q)`$ is restricted by the condition of convergence at large $`q`$: $`\varphi (q)<q^2`$, as $`q\mathrm{}`$. To facilitate our calculation we make a natural choice $`\varphi (q)=q`$, which allows the angular integration to be done analytically.

## 4 The Results

We defined our jets by taking $`\mu =2`$ GeV/c. As for the cutoffs, we used

$$1GeV/c<k_1<100GeV/c,$$
(9)
and we used a simplified expression for the virtual photon impact factor, independent of rapidity .

We have calculated the functions $`f_n`$ and $`g_n`$ from Eqs. (2) and (8) up to $`n=5`$ and $`y=15`$. Following  we have used the expansion in $`N`$ Chebyshev polynomials to discretize the kernels in a simple way.

In Figure 1 we present the averages $`<q>_n`$ for $`n=15`$ and $`x=e^y=3.10^70.1`$, for the $`\gamma ^{}`$-hadron collisions (DIS) at $`Q^2=100`$ (GeV/c)2.

As one observes, $`<q>_n`$ strongly grows with $`n`$ at all rapidities, being the growth approximately linear.

As an interesting by-product of our study we find that the averages $`<q>_n`$ go down with rapidity for all $`n2`$. This is quite unexpected, since in the BFKL approach an overall average $`<q>`$ rapidly grows with $`y`$.

Similar results are obtained for purely hadronic collisions .

## 5 Discussion

Emissions of high-$`p_T`$ jets in DIS seem to be a suitable place to see the BFKL signatures. Our results show that in such emissions strong positive correlations are predicted between $`<p_T>`$ and the number of jets, already for a single Pomeron exchange. This indicates that in fact such correlations are already present in the basic mechanism of jet production. The linear growth of $`<p_T>`$ with $`n`$ that has been obtained could be a random-walk effect, $`<p_T>`$ becoming larger and larger at each step (with each new produced jet) . The extension of our study to the case of the BFKL equation with a running coupling constant would be important in order to stablish the stability of our results.

An unexpected result obtained in our calculation is that $`<q>_n`$ at fixed $`n2`$ fall with energy. Certainly this phenomenon deserves further investigation including higher $`y`$ and/or $`n`$. We hope that it can be tested experimentally as a possible signature of the BFKL Pomeron.

## Acknowledgments

This work is supported by CICYT (Spain), FPA2002-01161, and by the RFFI grant 01-0-17137 (Russia).

## References

1. UA1 Collaboration, C. Ciapetti in The Quark Structure of Matter, edited by M. Jacob and K. Winter (1986), p. 455; F. Ceradini, Proceedings of the International Europhys. Conference on High-Energy Physics, Bari, edited by L. Nitti and G. Preparata (1985), and references therein.

2. M.A. Braun, C. Merino, and G. Rodríguez, Phys. Rev. D 65, 114001 (2002).

3. J. Kwiecinski, C.A.M. Lewis, and A.D. Martin, Phys. Rev. D 54, 6664 (1996).

4. We thank A.B. Kaidalov for enlightening discussions on this point.


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# An information theoretic approach to the functional classification of neurons

## 1 Introduction

Neurons exhibit an enormous variety of shapes and molecular compositions. Already in his classical work, Cajal  recognized that the shapes of cells can be classified, and he identified many of the cell types that we recognize today. Such classification is fundamentally important, because it implies that instead of having to describe $``$1012 individual neurons, a mature neuroscience might need to deal only with a few thousand different classes of nominally identical neurons. There are three broad methods of classification: morphological, molecular, and functional. Morphological and molecular classification are appealing because they deal with a relatively fixed property, but ultimately the functional properties of neurons are the most important, and neurons that share the same morphology or molecular markers need not embody the same function. With attention to arbitrary detail, every neuron will be individual, while a coarser view might overlook an important distinction; a quantitative formulation of the classification problem is essential.

The vertebrate retina is an attractive example: its anatomy is well studied and highly ordered, containing repeated micro-circuits that look out at different angles in visual space ; its overall function (vision) is clear, giving the experimenter better intuition about relevant stimuli; and responses of many of its output neurons, ganglion cells, can be recorded simultaneously using a multi–electrode array, allowing greater control of experimental variables than possible with serial recordings . Here we exploit this favorable experimental situation to highlight the mathematical questions that must lie behind any attempt at classification.

Functional classification of retinal ganglion cells typically has consisted of finding qualitatively different responses to simple stimuli. Classes are defined by whether ganglion cells fire spikes at the onset or offset of a step of light or both (ON, OFF, ON/OFF cells in frog ) or whether they fire once or twice per cycle of a drifting grating (X, Y cells in cat ). Further elaborations exist. In the frog, the literature reports 1 class of ON-type ganglion cell and 4 or 5 classes of OFF-type . The salamander has been reported to have only 3 of these OFF-type ganglion cells . The classes have been distinguished using stimuli such as diffuse flashes of light, moving bars, and moving spots. The results are similar to earlier work using more exotic stimuli . In some cases, there is very close agreement between anatomical and functional classes, such as the ($`\alpha `$,$`\beta `$) and (Y,X) cells in the cat. However, the link between anatomy and function is not always so clear.

Here we show how information theory allows us to define the problem of classification without any a priori assumptions regarding which features of visual stimulus or neural response are most significant, and without imposing a metric on these variables. All notions of similarity emerge from the joint statistics of neurons in a population as they respond to common stimuli. To the extent that we identify the function of retinal ganglion cells as providing the brain with information about the visual world, then our approach finds exactly the classification which captures this functionality in a maximally efficient manner. Applied to experiments on the tiger salamander retina, this method identifies the major types of ganglion cells in agreement with traditional methods, but on a finer level we find clear structure within a group of 19 fast OFF cells that suggests at least 5 functional subclasses. More profoundly, even cells within a subclass are very different from one another, so that on average the ganglion cell responses to the simplified visual stimuli we have used provide $``$6 bits/sec of information about cell identity within our cell population. This is sufficient to identify uniquely each neuron in an “elementary patch” of the retina within one second, and a typical pair of cells can be distinguished reliably by observing an average of just two or three spikes.

## 2 Theory

Suppose that we could give a complete characterization, for each neuron $`\mathrm{i}=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$ in a population, of the probability $`P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})`$ that a stimulus $`\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ will generate the response $`r`$. Traditional approaches to functional classification introduce (implicitly or explicitly) a parametric representation for the distributions $`P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})`$ and then search for clusters in parameter space. For visual neurons we might assume that responses are determined by the projection of the stimulus movie $`\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ onto a single template or receptive field, $`P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})=F(r;\stackrel{}{𝐟}_\mathrm{i}\stackrel{}{𝐬})`$; classifying neurons then amounts to clustering the receptive fields $`\stackrel{}{𝐟}_\mathrm{i}`$. But it is not possible to cluster without specifying what it means for these vectors to be similar; in this case, since the vectors come from the space of stimuli, we need a metric or distortion measure on the stimuli themselves. It seems strange that classifying the responses of visual neurons requires us to say in advance what it means for images or movies to be similar.111If all cells are selective for a small number of commensurate features, then the set of vectors $`\stackrel{}{𝐟}_\mathrm{i}`$ must lie on a low dimensional manifold, and we can use this selectivity to guide the clustering. But we still face the problem of defining similarity: even if all the receptive fields in the retina can be summarized meaningfully by the diameters of the center and surround (for example), why should we believe that Euclidean distance in this two dimensional space is a sensible metric?

Information theory suggests a formulation that does not require us to measure similarity among either stimuli or responses. Imagine that we present a stimulus $`\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ and record the response $`r`$ from a single neuron in the population, but we don’t know which one. This response tells us something about the identity of the cell, and on average this can be quantified as the mutual information between responses and identity (conditional on the stimulus),

$$I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})=\frac{1}{N}\underset{\mathrm{i}=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{r}{}P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})\mathrm{log}_2\left[\frac{P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})}{P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬})}\right]\mathrm{bits},$$
(1)
where $`P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬})=(1/N)_{\mathrm{i}=1}^NP(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})`$. The mutual information $`I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})`$ measures the extent to which different cells in the population produce reliably distinguishable responses to the same stimulus; from Shannon’s classical arguments  this is the unique measure of these correlations which is consistent with simple and plausible constraints. It is natural to ask this question on average in an ensemble of stimuli $`P(\stackrel{}{𝐬})`$ (ideally the natural ensemble),

$$I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}=\frac{1}{N}\underset{\mathrm{i}=1}{\overset{N}{}}[d\stackrel{}{𝐬}]P(\stackrel{}{𝐬})P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})\mathrm{log}_2\left[\frac{P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})}{P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬})}\right];$$
(2)
$`I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ is invariant under all invertible transformations of $`r`$ or $`\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$.

Because information is mutual, we also can think of $`I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ as the information that cellular identity provides about the responses we will record. But now it is clear what we mean by classifying the cells: If there are clear classes, then we can predict the responses to a stimulus just by knowing the class to which a neuron belongs rather than knowing its unique identity. Thus we should be able to find a mapping $`\mathrm{i}C`$ of cells into classes $`C=1,2,\mathrm{},K`$ such that $`I(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ is almost as large as $`I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$, despite the fact that the number of classes $`K`$ is much less than the number of cells $`N`$.

Optimal classifications are those which use the $`K`$ different class labels to capture as much information as possible about the stimulus-response relation, maximizing $`I(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$ at fixed $`K`$. More generally we can consider soft classifications, described by probabilities $`P(C|\mathrm{i})`$ of assigning each cell to a class, in which case we would like to capture as much information as possible about the stimulus-response relation while constraining the amount of information that class labels provide directly about identity, $`I(C;\mathrm{i})`$. In this case our optimization problem becomes, with $`T`$ as a Lagrange multiplier,

$$\underset{P(C|\mathrm{i})}{\mathrm{max}}\left[I(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}TI(C;\mathrm{i})\right].$$
(3)
This is a generalization of the information bottleneck problem .

Here we confine ourselves to hard classifications, and use a greedy agglomerative algorithm  which starts with $`K=N`$ and makes mergers which at every step provide the smallest reduction in $`I(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})`$. This information loss on merging cells (or clusters) $`\mathrm{i}`$ and $`\mathrm{j}`$ is given by

$$D(\mathrm{i},\mathrm{j})\mathrm{\Delta }I_{\mathrm{ij}}(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})=D_{JS}[P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{i})||P(r|\stackrel{}{𝐬},\mathrm{j})]_\stackrel{}{𝐬},$$
(4)
where $`D_{JS}`$ is the Jensen–Shannon divergence  between the two distributions, or equivalently the information that one sample provides about its source distribution in the case of just these two alternatives. The matrix of “distances” $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_{\mathrm{ij}}`$ characterizes the similarities among neurons in pairwise fashion.

Finally, if cells belong to clear classes, then we ought to be able to replace each cell by a typical or average member of the class without sacrificing function. In this case function is quantified by asking how much information cells provide about the visual scene. There is a strict complementarity of the information measures: information that the stimulus/response relation provides about the identity of the cell is exactly information about the visual scene which will be lost if we don’t know the identity of the cells . Our information theoretic approach to classification of neurons thus produces classes such that replacing cells with average class members provides the smallest loss of information about the sensory inputs.

## 3 The responses of retinal ganglion cells to identical stimuli

We recorded simultaneously from 21 retinal ganglion cells from the salamander using a multi-electrode array.222The retina is isolated from the eye of the larval tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum tigrinum) and perfused in Ringer’s medium. Action potentials were measured extracellularly using a multi-electrode array , while light was projected from a computer monitor onto the photoreceptor layer. Because erroneously sorted spikes would strongly effect our results, we were very conservative in our identification of cleanly isolated cells. The visual stimulus consisted of 100 repeats of a 20 s segment of spatially uniform flicker (see fig. 1a), in which light intensity values were randomly selected every 30 ms from a Gaussian distribution having a mean of 4 mW/mm2 and an RMS contrast of 18%. Thus, the photoreceptors were presented with exactly the same visual stimulus, and the movie is many correlation times in duration, so we can replace averages over stimuli by averages over time (ergodicity). A 3 s sample of the ganglion cell’s responses to the visual stimulus is shown in Fig. 1b. There are times when many of the cells fire together, while at other times only a subset of these cells is active. Importantly, the same neuron may be part of different active groups at different times. On a finer time scale than shown here, the latency of the responses of the single neurons and their spiking patterns differ across time. To analyze the responses of the different neurons, we discretize the spike trains into time bins of size $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. We examine the response in windows of time having length $`T`$, so that an individual neural response $`r`$ becomes a binary ‘word’ $`W`$ with $`T/\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ ‘letters’.333As any fixed choice of $`T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is arbitrary, we explore a range of these parameters.

Since the cells in Fig. 1b are ordered according to their average firing rate, it is clear that there is no ‘simple’ grouping of the cells’ responses with respect to this response parameter; firing rates range continuously from 1 to 7 spikes per second (Fig. 1c). Similarly, the rate of information (estimated according to ) that the cells encode about the same stimulus also ranges continuously from 3 to 20 bits/s. We estimate the average stimulus pattern preceding a spike for each of the cells, the spike triggered average (STA), shown in Fig. 1d. According to traditional classification based on the STA, one of the cells is an ON cell, one is a slow OFF cells and 19 belong to the fast OFF class . While it may be possible to separate the 19 waveforms of the fast OFF cells into subgroups, this requires assumptions about what stimulus features are important. Furthermore, there is no clear standard for ending such subclassification.

## 4 Clustering of the ganglion cells responses into functional types

To classify these ganglion cells we solved the information theoretic optimization problem described above. Figure 2a shows the pairwise distances $`D(\mathrm{i},\mathrm{j})`$ among the 21 cells, ordered by their average firing rates; again, firing rate alone does not cluster the cells. The result of the greedy clustering of the cells is shown by a binary dendrogram in Fig. 2b.

The greedy agglomerative approximation  starts from every cell as a single cluster. We iteratively merge the clusters $`c_i`$ and $`c_j`$ which have the minimal value of $`D(c_i,c_j)`$ and display this distance or information loss as the height of the merger in Fig. 2b. We pool their spike trains together as the responses of the new cell class. We now re-estimate the distances between clusters and repeat the procedure, until we get a single cluster that contains all cells. Fig. 2c shows the compression in information achieved by each of the mergers: for each number of clusters, we plot the mutual information between the clusters and the responses, $`I(r;C|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$, normalized by the information that the response conveys about the full set of cells, $`I(r;\mathrm{i}|\stackrel{}{𝐬})_\stackrel{}{𝐬}`$. The clustering structure and the information curve in Fig. 2c are robust (up to one cell difference in the final dendrogram) to changes in the word size and bin size used; we even obtain the same results with a nearest neighbor clustering based on $`D(i,j)`$. This suggests that the top 7 mergers in Fig. 2b (which correspond to the bottom 7 points in panel c) are of significantly different subgroups. Two of these mergers, which correspond to the rightmost branches of the dendrogram, separate out the ON and slow OFF cells. The remaining 5 clusters are subclasses of fast OFF cells. However, Fig. 2d which shows the dissimilarity matrix from panel a, reordered by the result of the clustering, demonstrates that while there is clear structure within the cell population, the subclasses there are not sharply distinct.

### How many types are there?

While one might be happy with classifying the fast OFF cells into 5 subclasses, we further asked whether the cells within a subclass are reliably distinguishable from one another; that is, are the bottom mergers in Fig. 2b-c significant? We therefore randomly split each of the 21 cells into 2 halves (of 50 repeats each), or ‘siblings’, and re-clustered. Figure 3a shows the resulting dendrogram of this clustering, indicating that the cells are reliably distinguishable from one another: The nearest neighbor of each new half–cell is its own sibling, and (almost) all of the first layer mergers are of the corresponding siblings (the only mismatch is of a sibling merging with a neighboring full cell and then with the other sibling). Figure 3b shows the very different cumulative probability distributions of pairwise distances among the parent cells and that of the distances between siblings.

### How significant are the differences between the cells?

It might be that cells are distinguishable, but only after observing their responses for very long times. Since 1 bit is needed to reliably distinguish between a pair of cells, Fig. 3b shows that more than 90% of the pairs are reliably distinguishable within 2 seconds or less. This result is especially striking given the low mean spike rate of these cells; clearly, at times where none of the cells is spiking, it is impossible to distinguish between them. To place the information about identity on an absolute scale, we compare it to the entropy of the responses at each time, using 10 ms segments of the responses at each time during the stimulus (Fig. 4a). Most of the points lie close to the origin, but many of them reflect discrete times when the responses of the neurons are very different and hence highly informative about cell identity: under the conditions of our experiment, roughly 30% of the response variability among cells is informative about their identity.444Since the cells receive the same stimulus and often possess shared circuitry, an efficiency as high as 100% is very unlikely. On average observing a single neural response gives about 6 bits/s about the identity of the cells within this population. We also compute the average number of spikes per cell which we need to observe to distinguish reliably between cells $`\mathrm{i}`$ and $`\mathrm{j}`$,

$$n_d(i,j)=\frac{\frac{1}{2}(\overline{r_i}+\overline{r_j})}{D(i,j)}.$$
(5)
where $`\overline{r_i}`$ is the average spike rate of cell $`i`$ in the experiment. Figure 4b shows the cumulative probability distribution of the values of $`n_d`$. Evidently, more than 80% of the pairs are reliably distinguishable after observing, on average, only 3 spikes from one of the neurons. Since ganglion cells fire in bursts, this suggest that most cells are reliably distinguishable based on a single firing ‘event’! We also show that for the 11 most similar cells (those in the left subtree in Fig. 2b) only a few more spikes, or one extra firing event, are required to reliably distinguish them.

## 5 Discussion

We have identified a diversity of functional types of retinal ganglion cells by clustering them to preserve information about their identity. Beyond the easy classification of the major types of salamander ganglion cells – fast OFF, slow OFF, and ON – in agreement with traditional methods, we have found clear structure within the fast OFF cells that suggests at least 5 more functional classes. Furthermore, we found evidence that each cell is functionally unique. Even under this relatively simple stimulus, the analysis revealed that the cell responses convey $``$6 bits/s of information about cell identity within this population of 21 cells. Ganglion cells in the salamander interact with each other and collect information from a $``$250 $`\mu `$m radius; given the density of ganglion cells, the observed rate implies that a single ganglion cell can be discriminated from all the cells in this “elementary patch” within 1 s. This is a surprising degree of diversity, given that 19 cells in our sample would be traditionally viewed as nominally the same.

One might wonder if our choice of uniform flicker limits the results of our classification. However, we found that this stimulus was rich enough to distinguish every ganglion cell in our data set. It is likely that stimuli with spatial structure would reveal further differences. Using a larger collection of cells will enable us to explore the possibility that there is a continuum of unique functional units in the retina.

How might the brain make use of this diversity? Several alternatives are conceivable. By comparing the spiking of closely related cells, it might be possible to achieve much finer discrimination among stimuli that tend to activate both cells. Diversity also can improve the robustness of retinal signalling: as the retina is constantly setting its adaptive state in response to statistics of the environment that it cannot estimate without some noise, maintaining functional diversity can guard against adaptation that overshoots its optimum. Finally, great functional diversity opens up additional possibilities for learning strategies, in which downstream neurons select the most useful of its inputs rather than merely summing over identical inputs to reduce their noise. The example of the invertebrate retina demonstrates that nature can construct neural circuits with almost crystalline reproducibility from synapse to synapse. This suggests that the extreme diversity found here in the vertebrate retina may not be the result of some inevitable sloppiness of neural development but rather as evolutionary selection of a different strategy for representing the visual world.