Paper detail

Multiple stellar populations in Magellanic Cloud clusters. III. The first evidence of an extended main sequence turn-off in a young cluster: NGC1856

Recent studies have shown that the extended main-sequence turn off (eMSTO) is a common feature of intermediate-age star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs). The most simple explanation is that these stellar systems harbor multiple generations of stars with an age difference of a few hundred Myrs. However, while an eMSTO has been detected in a large number of clusters with ages between ~1-2 Gyrs, several studies of young clusters in both MCs and in nearby galaxies do not find any evidence for a prolonged star-formation history, i.e. for multiple stellar generations. These results have suggested alternative interpretation of the eMSTOs observed in intermediate-age star clusters. The eMSTO could be due to stellar rotation mimicking an age spread or to interacting binaries. In these scenarios, intermediate-age MC clusters would be simple stellar populations, in close analogy with younger clusters. Here we provide the first evidence for an eMSTO in a young stellar cluster. We exploit multi-band Hubble Space Telescope photometry to study the ~300-Myr old star cluster NGC1856 in the Large Magellanic Cloud and detected a broadened MSTO that is consistent with a prolonged star-formation which had a duration of about 150 Myrs. Below the turn-off, the MS of NGC1856 is split into a red and blue component, hosting 33+/-5% and 67+/-5% of the total number of MS stars, respectively. We discuss these findings in the context of multiple-stellar-generation, stellar-rotation, and interacting-binary hypotheses.