Related papers: The Formation of Globular Cluster Systems
We explore a scenario where metal poor globular clusters (GCs) form at the centres of their own dark matter halos in the early universe before reionization. This hypothesis leads to predictions about the abundance, distribution and…
We argue that all transient searches for planets in globular clusters have a very low detection probability. Planets of low metallicity stars typically do not reside at small orbital separations. The dependance of planetary system…
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…
Understanding the formation of globular clusters will help us to constrain the evolutionary history of galaxies. For mergers on-going today, it appears that the number of newly created proto-globulars varies with the progenitor types and…
We carry out a joint spatial-kinematical-metallicity analysis of globular clusters (GCs) around the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), using a homogeneous, high-quality spectroscopic dataset. In particular, we remove the contaminating young clusters…
Globular cluster systems in most large galaxies display bimodal color and metallicity distributions, which are frequently interpreted as indicating two distinct modes of cluster formation. The metal-rich (red) and metal-poor (blue) clusters…
In this paper, we presented metal abundance properties of 144 M81 globular clusters. These globulars consist of the largest globular cluster sample in M81 till now. Our main results are: the distribution of metallicities are bimodal, with…
Perhaps the most noteworthy of recent findings in extragalactic globular cluster (GC) research are the multimodal GC metallicity distributions seen in massive early-type galaxies. We explore the origin of these distinct GC populations, the…
In the first part of this article, we review observations of the mass and luminosity functions of young and old star cluster systems. We also review some of the physical processes that may determine the characteristic mass of globular…
Collisions and mergers of gas-rich galaxies trigger bursts of star and cluster formation. Of the thousands of clusters typically formed during a major merger, only the most massive and compact survive for Gigayears as globular clusters…
This paper explores the quantitative connection between globular clusters and the diffuse stellar population of the galaxies they are associated with. Both NGC 1399 and NGC 4486 (M87) are well suited for this kind of analysis due to their…
Though it is generally assumed that massive molecular clouds are the progenitors of globular clusters, their detailed formation mechanism is still unclear. Standard scenarios based on the collapse of a smooth matter distribution suffer from…
Star clusters are fundamental building blocks of galaxies. Their formation is related to the density and pressure in progenitor molecular clouds and their environmental conditions. To understand better the dynamical processes driving star…
We examine the dynamics of the stars and globular clusters in the nearby giant galaxy M87 and constrain the mass distribution, using all the available data over a large range of radii, including higher-order moments of the stellar…
Some factors connecting the evolutionary histories of galaxies with the characteristics of their cluster systems are reviewed. Unanswered questions include: How is one to understand the observation that some globular cluster systems have…
The radial distribution of globular clusters in galaxies is always less peaked to the centre than the halo stars'. Extending previous work to a sample of HST globular cluster systems in ellipticals, we evaluate the number of clusters lost…
Traditionally globular clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies have been distinguished by using one or more of the following criteria: (1) mass, (2) luminosity, (3) size, (4) mass-to-light ratio and (5) spread in metallicity. However, a few…
We investigate the structural, kinematical, and chemical properties of globular cluster systems (GCSs) in galaxies of different Hubble types in a self-consistent manner based on high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations combined with…
As shown in previous works, globular clusters can be used to trace the overall structure of the diffuse stellar populations in early type galaxies if the number of clusters per unit stellar mass depends on metallicity. In this paper we…
Rich clusters of galaxies are the most massive virialized systems known. Even though they contain only a small fraction of all galaxies, rich clusters provide a powerful tool for the study of galaxy formation, dark matter, large-scale…