Globular clusters in the Magellanic Clouds - II. IR-array photometry for 12 globular clusters and contributions to the integrated cluster light

We report the results of the observations in the JHK bands of 12 globularclusters in the LMC, and present CMDs down to K=16 for about 450 stars. Wemerge the data with the BV ones presented in paper I and use the merged data tostudy the evolution of integrated magnitudes and colours of SSPs. We find thatthe AGB contributes about 60 percent of integrated clusters light in K, whilethe contribution from RGB is correlated with the age of the cluster. The age atwhich the first appearance of the RGB takes place depends on the models adoptedranging from about 600 Myr in the "classical" models to about 1.5 Gyr with the"overshooting" models. Both models give the same fractional contribution of theRGB to the cluster light, in agreement with the Fuel Consumption Theorem. Theoverall picture is consistent with the early conclusions of Persson et al. 1983and Frogel et al. 1990 that J-K colour is driven by AGB stars, V-K iscontrolled by AGB and RGB stars and B-V is partially influenced by the wholepopulation redder than the RGB clump, but is strongly dependent on the fadingand reddening of the TO stars with age.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures available on request, uuencoded compressed postscript file with tables included, BAP 08-1994-021-OA