English

A Wide Field Map of Ultra-Compact Dwarfs in the Coma Cluster

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-07-22 v2

Abstract

A dataset of 23,351 globular clusters (GCs) and ultra-compact dwarfs (UCDs) in the Coma cluster of galaxies was built using Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys data. Based on the standard magnitude cut of MV11M_V \leq -11, a total of 523 UCD candidates are found within this dataset of Compact Stellar Systems (CSS). From a color-magnitude diagram (CMD) analysis built using this catalog, we find a clear mass-magnitude relation extending marginally into the UCD parameter space. The luminosity function defined by this dataset, shows an excess of sources at bright magnitudes, suggesting a bimodal formation scenario for UCDs. We estimate the number of UCDs with a different origin than GC to be NUCD32±1N_{UCD} \geq 32 \pm 1. We derive the total number of CSS within the core (1 Mpc) of Coma to be NCSS69,400±1400N_{CSS} \approx 69,400 \pm 1400. The radial distribution of UCDs in Coma shows that, like GCs, UCDs agglomerate around three giant ellipticals: NGC 4874, NGC 4889, and IC 4051. We find UCDs are more centrally concentrated around these three ellipticals than GCs. IC 4051 has a satellite population of UCDs similar to NGC 4874 and NGC 4889. We estimate only ~14% of UCDs, inhabit the intracluster space (ICUCD) between galaxies in the region, in comparison to ~24% for GCs (ICGC). We find red (metal-rich) UCDs are more likely located closer to a host galaxy, with blue (metal-poor) UCDs showing a greater dispersion and lower average density in the region.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.02296,
  title  = {A Wide Field Map of Ultra-Compact Dwarfs in the Coma Cluster},
  author = {Richard T. Pomeroy and Juan P. Madrid and Conor R. O'Neill and Alexander T. Gagliano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02296},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

19 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Fig.6 corrected in this version