Elliptical Galaxy Globular Cluster Systems: The Origin Of Color Bimodality

Details Elliptical Galaxy Globular Cluster Systems: The Origin Of Color Bimodality Elliptical Galaxy Globular Cluster Systems: The Origin Of Color Bimodality

Dec 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aas...205.3108a&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society Meeting 205, #31.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1398

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

It is well-established that the globular cluster systems of many ellipticals exhibit color bimodality. The origin of this bimodality, however, is still a topic of debate. One suggestion is that such color distributions are a result of elliptical galaxies forming through dissipationless hierarchical clustering. In this picture, the red population of globular clusters in such systems is primarily contributed by a massive "seed" object around which the elliptical forms, whereas the blue clusters are associated with accreted protogalactic fragments (or dwarf galaxies). Our primary goal in this study is to establish the likelihood that such a model produces color distributions like those observed. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we confirm the finding of previous authors that dissipationless hierarchical clustering can reproduce empirical distributions. However, our main conclusion is that the frequency with which such a model reproduces bimodal color distributions is much lower than observed. Thus this model is not a viable one for the origin of the majority of globular cluster systems around ellipticals.
This work was supported in part by NSF grant AST-0406876

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