Related papers: Globular cluster luminosity function as distance i…
A Cepheid-based calibration is derived for four distance indicators that utilize stars in the old stellar populations: the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB), the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF), the globular cluster luminosity…
The presence of a diffuse stellar component in galaxy clusters has been established by a number of observational works in recent years. In this contribution I summarize our results (Zibetti et al. 2005) obtained by stacking SDSS images of…
Globular cluster systems provide valuable fossil records of the formation history of their parent galaxies. This review specifically concentrates on using color distributions of the globular cluster systems of elliptical galaxies to…
Estimating the age of the Universe is an old problem. Rapid progress in observational cosmology in recent years has led to more accurate values of the fundamental parameters. The current most popular model is a flat Universe, with about 30%…
The global properties of all known Galactic globular clusters are examined. The relationship between the luminosities and the metallicities of Galactic globular clusters is found to be complex. Among luminous clusters there is a correlation…
What is the role of clusters of galaxies in probing the large-scale velocity field of the universe? We investigate the distribution of peculiar velocities of clusters of galaxies in the popular low-density ($\Omega=0.3$) flat…
A synopsis of the recent results from our study of galaxy-galaxy lensing in clusters is presented. We have applied our analysis techniques to the sample of HST cluster-lenses that span a redshift range from redshift 0.18 to 0.58. We find…
In this paper we address the issue of the origin of some observational properties of the galactic globular cluster system. After a preliminary study of some general properties of the main evolutionary processes, we investigate the evolution…
The alignment between brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and host clusters can reveal the mystery of formation and evolution for galaxy clusters. We measure cluster orientations in optical based on the projected distribution of member…
The alignment of clusters of galaxies with their nearest neighbours and between clusters within a supercluster is investigated using simulations of 512^{3} dark matter particles for \LambdaCDM and \tauCDM cosmological models. Strongly…
We study the globular cluster (GC) populations of 21 giant elliptical galaxies in 19 Abell clusters. This method, applied here primarily in the R band, is based on the surface brightness fluctuations technique of extragalactic distance…
We present the serendipitous discovery of 195 extragalactic globular clusters (GCs) in one of the deepest optical images ever obtained, a 126 orbit HST/ACS imaging study of the nearby Galactic GC NGC 6397. The distant GCs are all found…
The relation between the globular cluster luminosity function (GCLF, dN/dlogL) and globular cluster mass function (GCMF, dN/dlogM) is considered. Due to low-mass star depletion, dissolving GCs have mass-to-light (M/L) ratios that are lower…
We present a novel approach to measuring the expansion rate and the geometry of the Universe, which combine time-delay cosmography in lens galaxy clusters with pure samples of 'cosmic chronometers' (CCs) by probing the member galaxies. The…
We present $V$ and $I$ photometry for $\sim 150$ globular clusters with $20 < V < 27$ $\sim 2.5$ arcmin from the centre of M87, the cD galaxy in the Virgo cluster. The data were acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope which, with effective…
A model for the mass in and around the Local Group previously used to fit redshifts of dwarf galaxies to their distances between 50 kpc and 2.6 Mpc under the condition of small and growing primeval departures from homogeneity is shown to…
Extensive photometric studies of the globular clusters located towards the center of the Milky Way have been historically neglected. The presence of patchy differential reddening in front of these clusters has proven to be a significant…
We used HST to obtain surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) observations of four nearby brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) to calibrate the BCG Hubble diagram of Lauer & Postman (1992). This BCG Hubble diagram contains 114 galaxies covering…
The cosmological luminosity-distance can be measured from gravitational wave (GW) standard sirens, free of astronomical distance ladders and the associated systematics. However, it may still contain systematics arising from various…
Stellar distance is an important basic parameter in stellar astrophysics. Stars in a cluster are thought to be formed coevally from the same interstellar cloud of gas and dust. They are therefore expected to have common properties. These…