Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846

Details Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846 Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846

1996-12-18

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9612172v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

22 pages, Latex. To be published in the Astronomical Journal. Full paper available at http://www.ucolick.org/~forbes/home.html

Scientific paper

10.1086/118308

Bimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions have now been seen in a handful of large ellipticals. Here we report the discovery of a bimodal distribution in the dominant group elliptical NGC 5846, using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The two peaks are located at V-I = 0.96 and 1.17, which roughly correspond to metallicities of [Fe/H] = -1.2 and -0.2 respectively. The luminosity functions of the blue and red subpopulations appear to be the same, indicating that luminosity does not correlate with metallicity within an individual galaxy's globular cluster system. Our WFPC2 data cover three pointings allowing us to examine the spatial distribution of globular clusters out to 30 kpc (or 2.5 galaxy effective radii). We find a power law surface density with a very flat slope, and a tendency for globular clusters to align close to the galaxy minor axis. An extrapolation of the surface density profile, out to 50 kpc, gives a specific frequency S_N = 4.3 +/- 1.1. Thus NGC 5846 has a much lower specific frequency than other dominant ellipticals in clusters but is similar to those in groups. The central galaxy regions reveal some filamentary dust features, presumably from a past merger or accretion of a gas-rich galaxy. This dust reaches to the very nucleus and so provides an obvious source of fuel for the radio core. We have searched for proto-globular clusters that may have resulted from the merger/accretion and find none. Finally, we briefly discuss the implications of our results for globular cluster formation mechanisms.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of the Globular Cluster System around NGC 5846 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-98458