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Six New Galactic Orbits of Globular Clusters in a Milky-Way-Like Galaxy

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 Added by Barbara Pichardo
 Publication date 2007
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




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Absolute proper motions for six new globular clusters have recently been determined. This motivated us to obtain the Galactic orbits of these six clusters both in an axisymmetric Galactic potential and in a barred potential, such as the one of our Galaxy. Orbits are also obtained for a Galactic potential that includes spiral arms. The orbital characteristics are compared and discussed for these three cases. Tidal radii and destruction rates are also computed and discussed.



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The effect of a barred potential (such as the one of the Milky Way) on the galactic orbits of forty-eight globular clusters for which absolute proper motions are known is studied. The orbital characteristics are compared with those obtained for the case of an axisymmetric galactic potential. Tidal radii are computed and discussed for both the better known axisymmetric case and that including a bar. The destruction rates due to bulge and disk shocking are calculated and compared in both galactic potentials.
We explore the formation of double-compact-object binaries in Milky Way (MW) globular clusters (GCs) that may be detectable by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We use a set of 137 fully evolved GC models that, overall, effectively match the properties of the observed GCs in the MW. We estimate that, in total, the MW GCs contain $sim21$ sources that will be detectable by LISA. These detectable sources contain all combinations of black hole (BH), neutron star, and white dwarf components. We predict $sim7$ of these sources will be BH-BH binaries. Furthermore, we show that some of these BH-BH binaries can have signal-to-noise ratios large enough to be detectable at the distance of the Andromeda galaxy or even the Virgo cluster.
Here we examine the Milky Ways GC system to estimate the fraction of accreted versus in situ formed GCs. We first assemble a high quality database of ages and metallicities for 93 Milky Way GCs from literature deep colour-magnitude data. The age-metallicity relation for the Milky Ways GCs reveals two distinct tracks -- one with near constant old age of ~12.8 Gyr and the other branches to younger ages. We find that the latter young track is dominated by globular clusters associated with the Sagittarius and Canis Major dwarf galaxies. Despite being overly simplistic, its age-metallicity relation can be well represented by a simple closed box model with continuous star formation. The inferred chemical enrichment history is similar to that of the Large Magellanic Cloud, but is more enriched, at a given age, compared to the Small Magellanic Cloud. After excluding Sagittarius and Canis Major GCs, several young track GCs remain. Their horizontal branch morphologies are often red and hence classified as Young Halo objects, however they do not tend to reveal extended horizontal branches (a possible signature of an accreted remnant nucleus). Retrograde orbit GCs (a key signature of accretion) are commonly found in the young track. We also examine GCs that lie close to the Fornax-Leo-Sculptor great circle defined by several satellite galaxies. We find that several GCs are consistent with the young track and we speculate that they may have been accreted along with their host dwarf galaxy, whose nucleus may survive as a GC. Finally, we suggest that 27-47 GCs (about 1/4 of the entire system), from 6-8 dwarf galaxies, were accreted to build the Milky Way GC system we seen today.
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