On the Size Difference between Red and Blue Globular Clusters

Details On the Size Difference between Red and Blue Globular Clusters On the Size Difference between Red and Blue Globular Clusters

2003-04-24

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304434v1

Astrophys.J. 593 (2003) 340

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

30 pages, including 14 figures and 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/376503

Several recent studies have reported a mean size difference of about 20% between the metal-rich and metal-poor subpopulations of globular clusters (GCs) in a variety of galaxies. In this paper we investigate the possibility that the size difference might be a projection effect, resulting from a correlation between cluster size and galactocentric distance, combined with different radial distributions of the GC subpopulations. We find that projection effects may indeed account for a size difference similar to the observed one, provided that there is a steep relation between GC size and galactocentric distance in the central parts of the GC system and that the density of GCs flattens off near the center in a manner similar to a King profile. For more centrally peaked distributions, such as a de Vaucouleurs law, or for shallower size-radius relations, projection effects are unable to produce the observed differences in the size distributions.

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