Abundances of red giants in M54 and Sgr dSph

We also derived detailed abundances for 27 red giants belonging to the Sgr nucleus. Our abundances assess the intrinsic metallicity dispersion (~0.19dex, rms scatter) of M 54, with the bulk of stars peaking at [Fe/H]~-1.6 and a long tail extending to higher metallicities, similar to {omega} Cen.

The spread in these probable nuclear star clusters exceeds those of most GCs: these massive clusters are located in a region intermediate between normal GCs and dwarf galaxies. M 54 shows the Na-O anticorrelation, typical signature of GCs, which is instead absent in the Sgr nucleus. The light elements (Mg, Al, Si) participating to the high temperature Mg-Al cycle show that the entire pattern of (anti)correlations produced by proton-capture reactions in H-burning is clearly different between the most metal-rich and most metal-poor components in the two most massive GCs in the Galaxy, confirming early result based on the Na-O anticorrelation.