ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Metal Abundance and Kinematical Properties of M81 Globular Cluster System

245   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Jun Ma
 تاريخ النشر 2012
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English
 تأليف Jun Ma




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

In this paper, we presented metal abundance properties of 144 M81 globular clusters. These globulars consist of the largest globular cluster sample in M81 till now. Our main results are: the distribution of metallicities are bimodal, with metallicity peaks at [Fe/H]sim-1.51 and -0.58, and the metal-poor globular clusters tend to be less spatially concentrated than the metal-rich ones; the metal-rich globular clusters in M81 do not demonstrate a centrally concentrated spatial distribution as the metal-rich ones in M31 do; like our Galaxy and M31, the globular clusters in M81 have a small radial metallicity gradient. These results are consistent with those obtained based on a small sample of M81 globular clusters. In addition, this paper showed that there is evidence that a strong rotation of the M81 globular cluster system around the minor axis exists, and that rotation is present in the metal-rich globular cluster subsample, while the metal-poor globular cluster subsample shows no evidence for rotation. The most significant difference between the rotation of the metal-rich and metal-poor globular clusters occurs at intermediate projected galactocentric radii. The results of this paper confirm the conclusion of Schroder et al. that M81s metal-rich globular clusters at intermediate projected radii were associated with a thick disk of M81.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

378 - Y.D. Mayya 2013
We analyse the photometric, chemical, star formation history and structural properties of the brightest globular cluster (GC) in M81, referred as GC1 in this work, with the intention of establishing its nature and origin. We find that it is a metal-r ich ([Fe/H]=-0.60+/-0.10), alpha-enhanced ([Alpha/Fe]=0.20+/0.05), core-collapsed (core radius r_c=1.2 pc, tidal radius r_t = 76r_c), old (>13 Gyr) cluster. It has an ultraviolet excess equivalent of ~2500 blue horizontal branch stars. It is detected in X-rays indicative of the presence of low-mass binaries. With a mass of 10 million solar masses, the cluster is comparable in mass to M31-G1 and is four times more massive than Omega Cen. The values of r_c, absolute magnitude and mean surface brightness of GC1 suggest that it could be, like massive GCs in other giant galaxies, the left-over nucleus of a dissolved dwarf galaxy.
Following on from our discovery of a significant population of M31 outer halo globular clusters (GCs), and updates to the Revised Bologna Catalogue of M31 GCs, we investigate the GC system of M31 out to an unprecedented radius (~120kpc). We derive va rious ensemble properties, including the magnitude, colour and metallicity distributions, as well as the GC number density profile. One of our most significant findings is evidence for a flattening in the radial GC number density profile in the outer halo. Intriguingly, this occurs at a galactocentric radius of ~2 degrees (~30 kpc) which is the radius at which the underlying stellar halo surface density has also been shown to flatten. The GCs which lie beyond this radius are remarkably uniform in terms of their blue (V-I)o colours, consistent with them belonging to an ancient population with little to no metallicity gradient. Structural parameters are also derived for a sample of 13 newly-discovered extended clusters (ECs) and we find the lowest luminosity ECs have magnitudes and sizes similar to Palomar-type GCs in the Milky Way halo. We argue that our findings provide strong support for a scenario in which a significant fraction of the outer halo GC population of M31 has been accreted.
We obtained spectra of 74 globular clusters in M81. These globular clusters had been identified as candidates in an HST ACS I-band survey. 68 of these 74 clusters lie within 7 of the M81 nucleus. 62 of these clusters are newly spectroscopically confi rmed, more than doubling the number of confirmed M81 GCs from 46 to 108. We determined metallicities for our 74 observed clusters using an empirical calibration based on Milky Way globular clusters. We combined our results with 34 M81 globular cluster velocities and 33 metallicities from the literature and analyzed the kinematics and metallicity of the M81 globular cluster system. The mean of the total sample of 107 metallicities is -1.06 +/- 0.07, higher than either M31 or the Milky Way. We suspect this high mean metallicity is due to an overrepresentation of metal-rich clusters in our sample created by the spatial limits of the HST I-band survey. The metallicity distribution shows marginal evidence for bimodality, with metal-rich and metal-poor peaks approximately matching those of M31 and the Milky Way. The GC system as a whole, and the metal-poor GCs alone, show evidence of a radial metallicity gradient. The M81 globular cluster system as a whole shows strong evidence of rotation, with V_r(deprojected) = 108 +/- 22 km/s overall. This result is likely biased toward high rotational velocity due to overrepresentation of metal-rich, inner clusters. The rotation patterns among globular cluster subpopulations are roughly similar to those of the Milky Way: clusters at small projected radii and metal-rich clusters rotate strongly, while clusters at large projected radii and metal-poor clusters show weaker evidence of rotation.
54 - M. Salaris 2004
We estimate the initial He content in about 30% of the Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) from new star counts we have performed on the recently published HST snapshot database of Colour Magnitude Diagrams (Piotto et al. 2002). More in detail, we use the so-called $R$-parameter and estimate the He content from a calibration based on a recently updated set of stellar models. We performed an accurate statistical analysis in order to assess whether GGCs show a statistically significant spread in their initial He abundances, and whether there is a correlation with the metallicity. We do not find any significant dependence of the He abundance on the GC metallicity; this provides an important constraint for models of Galaxy formation and evolution. Apart from GGCs with the bluest HB morphology, the observed spread in the individual He abundances is statistically compatible with the individual errors. This means that either there is no intrinsic He spread among the GGCs, or that this is masked by the errors. In the latter case we have estimated a firm 1$sigma$ upper limit of 0.019 to the possible intrinsic spread. In case of the GGCs with the bluest HB morphology we detect a significant spread towards higher abundances inconsistent with the individual errors. In the hypothesis that the intrinsic dispersion on the individual He abundances is zero, taking into account the errors on the individual R-parameter estimates, as well as the uncertainties on the GGC [M/H] scale and theoretical calibration, we have determined an initial He abundance Y(GGC)=0.250pm0.006 a value in perfect agreement with current estimates based on CMB radiation analyses and cosmological nucleosynthesis computations.
We present a kinematic analysis of the globular cluster(GC) system in the giant elliptical galaxy (gE) NGC 4636 in the Virgo cluster. Using the photometric and spectroscopic database of 238 GCs, we have investigated the kinematics of the GC system. T he NGC 4636 GC system shows weak overall rotation, which is dominated by the red GCs. However, both the blue GCs and red GCs show some rotation in the inner region at R<4.3. The velocity dispersion for all the GCs is derived to be sigma_p = 225{+12-9} km/s. The velocity dispersion for the blue GCs (sig=251 km/s) is slightly larger than that for the red GCs (sig=205 km/s). The velocity dispersions for the blue GCs about the mean velocity and about the best fit rotation curve have a significant variation depending on the galactocentric radius. Comparison of observed stellar and GC velocity dispersion profiles with the velocity dispersion profiles calculated from the stellar mass profile shows that the mass-to-light ratio should increase as the galactocentric distance increases, indicating the existence of an extended dark matter halo. From the comparison of the observed GC velocity dispersion profiles and the velocity dispersion profiles calculated for the X-ray mass profiles in the literature, we find that the orbit of the GC system is tangential, and that the orbit of the red GCs is slightly more tangential than that of the blue GCs. We compare the GC kinematics of NGC 4636 with those of other six gEs, finding that the kinematic properties of the GCs are diverse among gEs. We find several correlations between the kinematics of the GCs and the global parameters of their host galaxies. We discuss the implication of the results for the formation models of the GC system in gEs, and suggest a mixture scenario for the origin of the GCs in gEs.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا