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Register a new userMeasuring Consistent Masses for 25 Milky Way Globular Clusters
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Brian Kimmig
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We present central velocity dispersions, masses, mass to light ratios ($M/L$s), and rotation strengths for 25 Galactic globular clusters. We derive radial velocities of 1951 stars in 12 globular clusters from single order spectra taken with Hectochelle on the MMT telescope. To this sample we add an analysis of available archival data of individual stars. For the full set of data we fit King models to derive consistent dynamical parameters for the clusters. We find good agreement between single mass King models and the observed radial dispersion profiles. The large, uniform sample of dynamical masses we derive enables us to examine trends of $M/L$ with cluster mass and metallicity. The overall values of $M/L$ and the trends with mass and metallicity are consistent with existing measurements from a large sample of M31 clusters. This includes a clear trend of increasing $M/L$ with cluster mass, and lower than expected $M/L$s for the metal-rich clusters. We find no clear trend of increasing rotation with increasing cluster metallicity suggested in previous work.
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Discoveries of extended rotation curves have suggested the presence of dark matter in spiral galaxy haloes. It has led to many studies that estimated the galaxy total mass, mostly by using the Navarro Frenk and White (NFW) density profile. We aim at verifying how the choice of the dark-matter profile may affect the predicted values of extrapolated total masses. We have considered the recent Milky Way (MW) rotation curve, firstly because of its unprecedented accuracy, and secondly because the Galactic disk is amongst the least affected by past major mergers having fully reshaped the initial disk. We find that the use of NFW profile (or its generalized form, gNFW) for calculating the dark-matter contribution to the MW rotation curve generates apparently inconsistent results, e.g., an increase of the baryonic mass leads to increase of the dark matter mass. Furthermore we find that NFW and gNFW profile narrow the total mass range, leading to a possible methodological bias particularly against small MW masses. By using the Einasto profile that is more appropriate to represent cold dark matter haloes, we finally find that the Milky Way slightly decreasing rotation curve favors total mass that can be as small as 2.6 $times 10^{11}$ $M_{odot}$, disregarding any other dynamical tracers further out in the MW. It is inconsistent with values larger than 18 $times 10^{11}$ $M_{odot}$ for any kind of CDM dark-matter halo profiles, under the assumption that stars and gas do not influence the predicted dark matter distribution in the MW. This methodological paper encourages the use of the Einasto profile for characterizing rotation curves with the aim of evaluating their total masses.
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.
We report on the extent of the effects of the Milky Ways gravitational field in shaping the structural parameters and internal dynamics of its globular cluster population. We make use of a homogeneous, up-to-date data set with kinematics, structural properties, current and initial masses of 156 globular clusters. In general, cluster radii increase as the Milky Way potential weakens; with the core and Jacobi radii being those which increase at the slowest and fastest rate respectively. We interpret this result as the innermost regions of globular clusters being less sensitive to changes in the tidal forces with the Galactocentric distance. The Milky Ways gravitational field also seems to have differentially accelerated the internal dynamical evolution of individual clusters, with those toward the bulge appearing dynamically older. Finally we find a sub-population consisting of both compact and extended globular clusters (as defined by their rh/rJ ratio) beyond 8 kpc that appear to have lost a large fraction of their initial mass lost via disruption. Moreover, we identify a third group with rh/rJ > 0.4, which have lost an even larger fraction of their initial mass by disruption. In both cases the high fraction of mass lost is likely due to their large orbital eccentricities and inclination angles, which lead to them experiencing more tidal shocks at perigalacticon and during disc crossings. Comparing the structural and orbital parameters of individual clusters allows for constraints to be placed on whether or not their evolution was relaxation or tidally dominated.
We have determined masses, stellar mass functions and structural parameters of 112 Milky Way globular clusters by fitting a large set of N-body simulations to their velocity dispersion and surface density profiles. The velocity dispersion profiles were calculated based on a combination of more than 15,000 high-precision radial velocities which we derived from archival ESO/VLT and Keck spectra together with ~20,000 published radial velocities from the literature. Our fits also include the stellar mass functions of the globular clusters, which are available for 47 clusters in our sample, allowing us to self-consistently take the effects of mass segregation and ongoing cluster dissolution into account. We confirm the strong correlation between the global mass functions of globular clusters and their relaxation times recently found by Sollima & Baumgardt (2017). We also find a correlation of the escape velocity from the centre of a globular cluster and the fraction of first generation stars (FG) in the cluster recently derived for 57 globular clusters by Milone et al. (2017), but no correlation between the FG star fraction and the global mass function of a globular cluster. This could indicate that the ability of a globular cluster to keep the wind ejecta from the polluting star(s) is the crucial parameter determining the presence and fraction of second generation stars and not its later dynamical mass loss.
(ABRIDGED) Globular clusters trace the formation and evolution of the Milky Way and surrounding galaxies, and outline their chemical enrichment history. To accomplish these tasks it is important to have large samples of clusters with homogeneous data and analysis to derive kinematics, chemical abundances, ages and locations. We obtain homogeneous metallicities and alpha-element enhancement for over 800 red giant stars in 51 Galactic bulge, disc, and halo globular clusters that are among the most distant and/or highly reddened in the Galaxys globular cluster system. We observed R ~ 2000 spectra in the wavelength interval 456-586 nm and applied full spectrum fitting technique. We compared the mean abundances of all clusters with previous work and with field stars. We used the relation between mean metallicity and horizontal branch morphology defined by all clusters to select outliers for discussion. We find our metallicities are comparable to those derived from high-resolution data to within sigma = 0.08 dex over the interval -2.5 < [Fe/H] < 0.0. We also find that the distribution of [Mg/Fe] and [alpha/Fe] with [Fe/H] for the 51 clusters follows the general trend exhibited by field stars. It is the first time that the following clusters have been included in a large sample of homogeneous stellar spectroscopic observations and metallicity derivation: BH 176, Djorg 2, Pal 10, NGC 6426, Lynga 7, and Terzan 8. In particular, only photometric metallicities were available previously for the first three clusters, and the available metallicity for NGC 6426 was based on integrated spectroscopy and photometry. Two other clusters, HP 1 and NGC 6558, are confirmed as candidates for the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way. The technique used here can also be applied to globular cluster systems in nearby galaxies with current instruments and to distant galaxies with the advent of ELTs.
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