Discovery of two distinct red clumps in NGC 419: a rare snapshot of a cluster at the onset of degeneracy

Colour–magnitude diagrams (CMD) of the SMC star cluster NGC 419, derived from HST/ACS data, reveal a well-delineated secondary clump located below the classical compact red clump typical of intermediate-age populations. We demonstrate that this feature belongs to the cluster itself, rather than to the underlying SMC field. Then, we use synthetic CMDs to show that it corresponds very well to the secondary clump predicted to appear as a result of He-ignition in stars just massive enough to avoid e-degeneracy settling in their H-exhausted cores. The main red clump instead is made of the slightly less massive stars which passed through e-degeneracy and ignited He at the tip of the RGB. In other words, NGC 419 is the rare snapshot of a cluster while undergoing the fast transition from classical to degenerate H-exhausted cores. At this particular moment of a cluster’s life, the colour distance between the main sequence turn-off and the red clump(s) depends sensitively on the amount of convective core overshooting, Λc. By coupling measurements of this colour separation with fits to the red clump morphology, we are able to estimate simultaneously the cluster mean age (1.35 −0.04 Gyr) and overshooting efficiency (Λc = 0.47 +0.14 −0.04). Therefore, clusters like NGC 419 may constitute important marks in the age scale of intermediate-age populations. After eye inspection of other CMDs derived from HST/ACS data, we suggest that the same secondary clump may also be present in the LMC clusters NGC 1751, 1783, 1806, 1846, 1852, and 1917.