THE EFFECT OF HELIUM-ENHANCED STELLAR POPULATIONS ON THE ULTRAVIOLET-UPTURN PHENOMENON OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES

Recent observations and modeling of globular clusters with multiple populations strongly indicate the presence of super helium-rich subpopulations in old stellar systems. Motivated by this, we have constructed new population synthesis models with and without helium-enhanced subpopulations to investigate their impact on the UV-upturn phenomenon of quiescent early-type galaxies. We find that our models with helium-enhanced subpopulations can naturally reproduce the strong UV-upturns observed in giant elliptical galaxies assuming an age similar to that of old globular clusters in the Milky Way. The major source of far-UV (FUV) flux, in this model, is relatively metal-poor and helium-enhanced hot horizontal branch stars and their progeny. The Burstein et al. (1988) relation of the FUV - V color with metallicity is also explained either by the variation of the fraction of helium-enhanced subpopulations or by the spread in mean age of stellar populations in early-type galaxies.