Related papers: Metal-Poor Globular Clusters and Galaxy Formation
We have investigated the formation of globular cluster (GC) systems in the fiducial semi-analytic galaxy formation model of Cole et al. We assume that GCs are formed at high-redshift (z > 5) in proto-galactic fragments, and during the…
Globular cluster (GC) systems have now been studied in galaxies ranging from dwarfs to giants and spanning the full Hubble sequence of morphological types. Imaging and spectroscopy with the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based…
Globular cluster (GC) systems around galaxies of a vast mass range show remarkably simple scaling relations. The combined mass of all GCs is a constant fraction of the total galaxy mass and the mean metallicity and metallicity dispersion of…
In this paper, we are exploring the properties of old, metal-poor globular clusters in galaxies. We investigate whether their properties are related to the properties of their host galaxies, and whether we can constrain their formation. The…
We have determined the total numbers and specific frequencies of blue, metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) in eight spiral and early-type galaxies. These data, along with five measurements from the literature, show a trend of increasing blue…
We studied the metal-poor globular cluster (GC) populations of a large variety of galaxies (47 galaxies spanning about 10mag in absolute brightness) and compared their mean [Fe/H] with the properties of the host galaxies. The mean [Fe/H] of…
Metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) can provide a probe of the earliest epoch of star formation in the Universe, being the oldest stellar systems observable. In addition, young and intermediate-age low-metallicity GCs are present in external…
The color distributions of globular clusters (GCs) in individual early-type galaxies show great diversity in their morphology. Based on the conventional "linear" relationship between the colors and metallicities of GCs, the GC metallicity…
We present the color distributions of globular cluster (GC) systems for 100 Virgo cluster early-type galaxies observed in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. The color distributions of individual GC systems are consistent with continuous trends…
Metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) are our local link to the earliest epochs of star formation and galaxy building. Studies of extragalactic GC systems using deep, high-quality imaging have revealed a small but significant slope to the…
We investigate formation processes and physical properties of globular cluster systems (GCSs) in galaxies based on high-resolution cosmological simulations with globular clusters. We focus on metal-poor clusters (MPCs) and correlations with…
One of the conundrums in extragalactic astronomy is the discrepancy in observed metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) between the two prime stellar components of early-type galaxies-globular clusters (GCs) and halo field stars. This is…
We present a novel, observationally-based framework for the formation epochs and sites of globular clusters (GCs) in a cosmological context. Measuring directly the mean ages of the metal-poor and metal-rich GC subpopulations in our own…
The observed characteristics of globular cluster (GC) systems, such as metallicity distributions, are commonly used to place constraints on galaxy formation models. However, obtaining reliable metallicity values is particularly difficult…
Based on a new large, homogeneous photometric database of 35 Galactic globular clusters (GGCs), a set of distance and reddening independent relative age indicators has been measured. The observed D(V-I)_2.5 and D(V)(HB-TO) vs. metallicity…
It has been a long-standing open question why observed globular cluster (GC) populations of different metallicities differ in their ages and spatial distributions, with metal-poor GCs being the older and radially more extended of the two.…
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…
In the local Universe, globular clusters (GCs) with metallicities $[{\rm Fe}/{\rm H}]<-2.5$ are extremely rare. In this Letter, the close connection between GC formation and galaxy evolution is used to show that this GC metallicity `floor'…
The mean color of globular clusters (GCs) in early-type galaxies is in general bluer than the integrated color of halo field stars in host galaxies. Metal-rich GCs often appear more associated with field stars than metal-poor GCs, yet show…
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…