Related papers: Globular Cluster Populations: Signatures and Impli…
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest and most luminous stellar systems in the Universe, offering unique insights into galaxy formation and evolution. While the physical processes behind their origin have long remained elusive, major…
We present a new photometric study of NGC 3258 and NGC 3268 globular cluster systems (GCSs), using images in filters $B,C,V,R,I$ and $z'$, obtained from four different telescopes. The wide spatial coverage allow us to estimate the whole…
A large number of intermediate-age (~1-2-Gyr old) globular clusters (GCs) in the Large and the Small Magellanic Cloud (MC) exhibit either bimodal or extended main-sequence (MS) turn off and dual red clump. Moreover, recent papers have shown…
We present an analysis of the globular cluster systems of 28 elliptical galaxies using archival WFPC2 images in the V and I-bands. The V-I color distributions of at least 50% of the galaxies appear to be bimodal {\it at the present level of…
Most Globular Clusters (GC) show chemical inhomogeneities in the composition of their stars, apparently due to a second stellar generation (SG) in which the forming gas is enriched by hot-CNO cycled material processed in stars belonging to…
This paper addresses the questions of what we have learned about how and when dense star clusters form, and what studies of star clusters have revealed about galaxy formation and evolution. One important observation is that globular…
We present the results of a meta-analysis of Keck spectra of extragalactic globular clusters (GCs) in a sample of eight galaxies, ranging from dwarfs to massive ellipticals. We infer ages for the metal-poor and metal-rich GCs in these…
Deep imaging data from the Keck II telescope are employed to study the globular cluster (GC) populations in the cores of six rich Abell clusters. The sample includes A754, A1644, A2124, A2147, A2151, and A2152, and spans the redshift range…
Studies during the last decade have revealed that nearly all Globular Clusters (GCs) host multiple populations (MPs) of stars with a distinctive chemical patterns in light elements. No evidence of such MPs has been found so far in…
Shells in Elliptical Galaxies are faint, sharp-edged features, believed to provide evidence of a recent ($\sim 0.5 - 2 \times 10^9$ years ago) merger event. We analyse the Globular Cluster (GC) systems of six shell elliptical galaxies, to…
This paper presents deep high quality photometry of globular cluster (GC) systems belonging to five early-type galaxies covering a range of mass and environment. Photometric data were obtained with the Gemini North and Gemini South…
There is compelling observational evidence that globular clusters (GCs) are quite complex objects. A growing body of photometric results indicate that the evolutionary sequences are not simply isochrones in the observational plane -as…
Two generations of stars, G1 and G2, typically populate Galactic globular clusters (GCs). The origin of G2 stars is unclear. We uncover two empirical dependencies between GC characteristics, which can be explained by the formation of G2…
Recent progress in studies of globular clusters has shown that they are not simple stellar populations, being rather made of multiple generations. Evidence stems both from photometry and spectroscopy. A new paradigm is then arising for the…
In a 1$^{\rm st}$ step I present results from our new set of evolutionary synthesis models for Simple (= single burst) Stellar Populations ({\bf SSP}s) of various metallicities, and in a 2$^{\rm nd}$ step I combine these results with the…
We present an astrometry and photometry catalogue of globular cluster (GC) candidates detected with HST WFPC2 in a sample of 19 early-type galaxies, appropriate for comparison to the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) populations observed with…
Globular clusters are compact, gravitationally bound systems of up to a million stars. The GCs in the Milky Way contain some of the oldest stars known, and provide important clues to the early formation and continuing evolution of our…
The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters is providing a major breakthrough in our knowledge of Globular Clusters (GCs) and their stellar populations. Among the main results, we discovered that all the…
The majority of the inhomogeneities in the chemical composition of Globular Cluster (GC) stars appear due to primordial enrichment by hot-CNO cycled material processed in stars belonging to a first stellar generation. Either massive AGB…
Representing single stellar populations, globular clusters (GCs) are relatively easy to model, thus providing powerful tools for studying the evolution of galaxies. This has been demonstrated for the blue compact galaxy ESO338-IG04. GC…