Multi-band Photometry of NGC 1399 Globular Cluster System:A Crucial Test for the Origin of Color Bimodality

Details Multi-band Photometry of NGC 1399 Globular Cluster System:A Crucial Test for the Origin of Color Bimodality Multi-band Photometry of NGC 1399 Globular Cluster System:A Crucial Test for the Origin of Color Bimodality

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21344202k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #442.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.319

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The bimodal color distribution is one of the most conspicuous features of globular cluster (GC) systems. It has been commonly accepted that the color bimodality comes from two GC sub-populations with different mean metallicities within individual galaxies. However, a new explanation is proposed recently, in which the non-linear color-metallicity relations can produce the color bimodality even from the unimodal metallicity distribution. In this study, we use multi-band (U, B, V and I) photometry of NGC 1399 GCs obtained with the CTIO 4 m Telescope to test the hypothesis that color bimodality arises from a color-metallicity "projection effect". After carefully selecting GC candidates using our photometry, we show that different sets of colors (e.g., B-I versus U-B) for the same GC sample exhibit considerably different blue-to-red GC number ratios. We find that these observed results are well reproduced by our Monte Carlo simulations where a simple projection of a unimodal (rather than a bimodal) metallicity distribution onto theoretical color-metallicity relations is used. Finally, we discuss the advantage of using colors based on U-band in selecting GC candidates and in placing constraints on the origin of color bimodality.
This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2006-331-C00134).

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