ROTATING STELLAR MODELS CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE EXTENDED MAIN-SEQUENCE TURNOFFS IN INTERMEDIATE-AGE CLUSTERS

We show that the extended main-sequence turnoffs seen in intermediate-age Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) clusters, often attributed to age spreads of several 100 Myr, may be easily accounted for by variable stellar rotation in a coeval population. We compute synthetic photometry for grids of rotating stellar evolution models and interpolate them to produce isochrones at a variety of rotation rates and orientations. An extended main-sequence turnoff naturally appears in color-magnitude diagrams at ages just under 1 Gyr, peaks in extent between similar to 1 and 1.5 Gyr, and gradually disappears by around 2 Gyr in age. We then fit our interpolated isochrones by eye to four LMC clusters with very extended main-sequence turnoffs: NGC 1783, 1806, 1846, and 1987. In each case, stellar populations with a single age and metallicity can comfortably account for the observed extent of the turnoff region. The new stellar models predict almost no correlation of turnoff color with rotational v sin i. The red part of the turnoff is populated by a combination of slow rotators and edge-on rapid rotators, while the blue part contains rapid rotators at lower inclinations.