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We have determined the detailed star formation history and total mass of the globular clusters in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal using archival HST WFPC2 data. Colour magnitude diagrams are constructed in the F555W and F814W bands and corrected for the effect of Fornax field star contamination, after which we use the routine Talos to derive the quantitative star formation history as a function of age and metallicity. The star formation history of the Fornax globular clusters shows that Fornax 1, 2, 3 and 5 are all dominated by ancient (>10 Gyr) populations. Cluster Fornax 1,2 and 3 display metallicities as low as [Fe/H]=-2.5 while Fornax 5 is slightly more metal-rich at [Fe/H]=-1.8, consistent with resolved and unresolved metallicity tracers. Conversely, Fornax 4 is dominated by a more metal-rich~([Fe/H]=-1.2) and younger population at 10 Gyr, inconsistent with the other clusters. A lack of stellar populations overlapping with the main body of Fornax argues against the nucleus cluster scenario for Fornax 4. The combined stellar mass in globular clusters as derived from the SFH is (9.57$pm$0.93)$times$10$^{5}$ M$_{odot}$ which corresponds to 2.5$pm$0.2 percent of the total stellar mass in Fornax. The mass of the four most metal-poor clusters can be further compared to the metal-poor Fornax field to yield a mass fraction of 19.6$pm$3.1 percent. Therefore, the SFH results provide separate supporting evidence for the unusually high mass fraction of the GCs compared to the Fornax field population.
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We use measurements of nitrogen abundances in red giants to search for multiple stellar populations in the four most metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Fornax 1, 2, 3, and 5). New imaging in the F343N filter, obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope, is combined with archival F555W and F814W observations to determine the strength of the NH band near 3370 AA. After accounting for observational errors, the spread in the F343N-F555W colors of red giants in the Fornax GCs is similar to that in M15 and corresponds to an abundance range of Delta([N/Fe])=2 dex, as observed also in several Galactic GCs. The spread in F555W-F814W is, instead, fully accounted for by observational errors. The stars with the reddest F343N-F555W colors (indicative of N-enhanced composition) have more centrally concentrated radial distributions in all four clusters, although the difference is not highly statistically significant within any individual cluster. From double-Gaussian fits to the color distributions we find roughly equal numbers of N-normal and N-enhanced stars (formally about 40% N-normal stars in Fornax 1, 3, and 5 and 60% in Fornax 2). We conclude that GC formation, in particular regarding the processes responsible for the origin of multiple stellar populations, appears to have operated similarly in the Milky Way and in the Fornax dSph. Combined with the high ratio of metal-poor GCs to field stars in the Fornax dSph, this places an important constraint on scenarios for the origin of multiple stellar populations in GCs.
Recently, high-dispersion spectroscopy has demonstrated conclusively that four of the five globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy are very metal-poor with [Fe/H]<-2. The remaining cluster, Fornax 4, has [Fe/H]=-1.4. This is in stark contrast to the field star metallicity distribution which shows a broad peak around [Fe/H]=-1 with only a few percent of the stars having [Fe/H]<-2. If we only consider stars and clusters with [Fe/H]<-2 we thus find an extremely high GC specific frequency, SN=400, implying by far the highest ratio of GCs to field stars known anywhere. We estimate that about 1/5-1/4 of all stars in the Fornax dSph with [Fe/H]<-2 belong to the four most metal-poor GCs. These GCs could, therefore, at most have been a factor of 4-5 more massive initially. Yet, the Fornax GCs appear to share the same anomalous chemical abundance patterns known from Milky Way GCs, commonly attributed to the presence of multiple stellar generations within the clusters. The extreme ratio of metal-poor GC- versus field stars in the Fornax dSph is difficult to reconcile with scenarios for self-enrichment and early evolution of GCs in which a large fraction (90%-95%) of the first-generation stars have been lost. It also suggests that the GCs may not have formed as part of a larger population of now disrupted clusters with an initial power-law mass distribution. The Fornax dSph may be a rosetta stone for constraining theories of the formation, self-enrichment and early dynamical evolution of star clusters.
We present a new study of the variable star population in globular cluster 5 of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy, based on B and V time series photometry obtained with the MagIC camera of the 6.5 m Magellan Clay telescope and complementary HST archive data. Light curves and accurate periodicities were obtained for 30 RR Lyrae stars and 1 SX Phoenicis variable. The RR Lyrae sample includes 15 fundamental-mode pulsators, 13 first-overtone pulsators, 1 candidate double-mode pulsator and one RR Lyrae star with uncertain type classification. The average and minimum periods of the ab-type RR Lyrae stars, <Pab>=0.590 days, P(ab,min)=0.53297 days, and the position in the horizontal branch type--metallicity plane, indicate that the cluster has Oosterhoff-intermediate properties, basically confirming previous indications by Mackey & Gilmore (2003b), although with some differences both in the period and type classification of individual variables. The average apparent magnitude of the Fornax 5 RR Lyrae stars is <V(RR)>=21.35 +/- 0.02 mag (sigma=0.07 mag, average on 14 stars more likely belonging to the cluster, and having well sampled light curves). This value leads to a true distance modulus of mu0=20.76 +/- 0.07 (d=141.9 (+4.6;-4.5) kpc) if we adopt for the cluster the metal abundance by Buonanno et al. (1998; [Fe/H]=-2.20 +/- 0.20), or mu0=20.66 +/- 0.07 (d=135.5 (+4.4;-4.3) kpc), if we adopt Strader et al.s (2003) metal abundance ([Fe/H]=-1.73 +/- 0.13).
It has long been argued that the radial distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf galaxy requires its dark matter halo to have a core of size $sim 1$ kpc. We revisit this argument by investigating analogues of Fornax formed in E-MOSAICS, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation that self-consistently follows the formation and evolution of GCs in the EAGLE galaxy formation model. In EAGLE, Fornax-mass haloes are cuspy and well described by the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We post-process the E-MOSAICS to account for GC orbital decay by dynamical friction, which is not included in the original model. Dynamical friction causes 33 per cent of GCs with masses $M_{rm GC}geq4times10^4 {~rm M_odot}$ to sink to the centre of their host where they are tidally disrupted. Fornax has a total of five GCs, an exceptionally large number compared to other galaxies of similar stellar mass. In the simulations, we find that only 3 per cent of the Fornax analogues have five or more GCs, while 30 per cent have only one and 35 per cent have none. We find that GC systems in satellites are more centrally concentrated than in field dwarfs, and that those formed in situ (45 per cent) are more concentrated than those that were accreted. The survival probability of a GC increases rapidly with the radial distance at which it formed ($r_{rm init}$): it is 37 per cent for GCs with $r_{rm init} leq 1$ kpc and 92 per cent for GCs with $r_{rm init} geq 1$ kpc. The present-day radial distribution of GCs in E-MOSAICS turns out to be indistinguishable from that in Fornax, demonstrating that, contrary to claims in the literature, the presence of five GCs in the central kiloparsec of Fornax does not exclude a cuspy DM halo.
Globular clusters (GCs) are found ubiquitously in massive galaxies and due to their old ages, they are regarded as fossil records of galaxy evolution. Spectroscopic studies of GC systems are often limited to the outskirts of galaxies, where GCs stand out against the galaxy background and serve as bright tracers of galaxy assembly. In this work, we use the capabilities of the Multi Unit Explorer Spectrograph (MUSE) to extract a spectroscopic sample of 722 GCs in the inner regions ($lesssim 3 R_text{eff}$) of 32 galaxies in the Fornax cluster. These galaxies were observed as part of the Fornax 3D project, a MUSE survey that targets early and late-type galaxies within the virial radius of Fornax. After accounting for the galaxy background in the GC spectra, we extracted line-of-sight velocities and determined metallicities of a sub-sample of 238 GCs. We found signatures of rotation within GC systems, and comparing the GC kinematics and that of the stellar body shows that the GCs trace the spheroid of the galaxies. While the red GCs prove to closely follow the metallicity profile of the host galaxy, the blue GCs show a large spread of metallicities but they are generally more metal-poor than the host.
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