English

A peculiar HI cloud near the distant globular cluster Pal 4

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2009-10-05 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

We present 21-cm observations of four Galactic globular clusters, as part of the on-going GALFA-HI Survey at Arecibo. We discovered a peculiar HI cloud in the vicinity of the distant (109 kpc) cluster Pal 4, and discuss its properties and likelihood of association with the cluster. We conclude that an association of the HI cloud and Pal 4 is possible, but that a chance coincidence between Pal 4 and a nearby compact high-velocity cloud cannot be ruled out altogether. New, more stringent upper limits were derived for the other three clusters: M 3, NGC 5466, and Pal 13. We briefly discuss the fate of globular cluster gas and the interaction of compact clouds with the Galactic Halo gas.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0903.2391,
  title  = {A peculiar HI cloud near the distant globular cluster Pal 4},
  author = {Jacco Th. van Loon and Snezana Stanimirovic and Mary Putman and Joshua E. G. Peek and Steven J. Gibson and Kevin A. Douglas and Eric J. Korpela},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.2391},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in MNRAS

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:40:17.346Z