The dynamical origin of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters

Details The dynamical origin of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters The dynamical origin of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters

2011-08-25

arxiv.org/abs/1108.5173v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

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Scientific paper

For a long time globular clusters (GCs) have been considered as ideal laboratories to study dense stellar systems. However, recent observations have revealed that most of them consist of different stellar populations. In particular, omega Centauri (\omega Cen) is one of the most complex GCs and has attracted a lot of attention, because its high mass may depict a link between GCs and larger stellar systems, such as ultra compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs). Here we show with direct-summation N-body simulations that a natural explanation is the merger of GCs in colliding galaxies, such as the Antenn{\ae} galaxy. Hubble Space Telescope observations of these interacting galaxies show clusters of clusters, regions in the galaxy that span hundreds of parsecs, where many of the GCs are doomed to collide. Also, observations of the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC) reveal that a fraction of GCs are bound and thus will result in a merger. Our results prove that colliding GCs with different metallicities and ages can produce a GC with multiplicity and occupation fractions similar as observed. In our scenario the merged clusters have a phase with a larger amount of flattening than average, and we find that observational data correlates evidence of rotation with multiplicity, which corroborates our hypothesis. Future observations of multiple populations should focus on GCs with ellipticity above average.

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