Over 200 globular clusters in the Milky Way and still none with super-Solar metallicity

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Auteurs principaux: Garro, E. R., Minniti, D., Fernández-Trincado, J. G.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Garro, E. R.
Minniti, D.
Fernández-Trincado, J. G.
author_facet Garro, E. R.
Minniti, D.
Fernández-Trincado, J. G.
contents Many globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way (MW) have been studied in recent years, especially in hidden regions such as those of the Galactic bulge. Our main goal is to understand what we can learn if we include these new objects into the MWGC system that we know today. We catalogue 37 recently discovered GCs. We use different distributions for investigating the MWGC system: metallicity distribution (MD), luminosity function (LF), and age distribution. We first treat separately the new GCs sample from the known and well-characterised GCs. We merge these two samples, upgrading the MWGC system. We performed a comparison between our clusters sample and field star (FS) population. We find a double peaked distribution for the LF, which shows an elongated faint end tail. Considering the "merged" sample, the LF and the MDs display a bimodality trend. We construct the MD for the FS sample, and comparing this with that one of the GCs, we learn that a high percentage of FS show [Fe/H]$>0$, whereas we do not detect any GCs in the same metallicity range. In order to understand this inconsistency, we construct the age-metallicity diagram for both samples, noting that the old and metal-poor population (age$\geq8$ Gyr and [Fe/H]$\leq -1.0$) is represented by GCs, while the young and metal-rich population (age$<8$ Gyr and [Fe/H]$>-1.0$) corresponds to FS. From the analysis of the GC LF and MD, we can conclude that many GCs, probably those very faint, have survived strong dynamical processes, typical of the Bulge regions. We cannot exclude the possibility that some of them have been accreted during past merging events, especially the metal-poor component, whereas the metal-rich population may be related to the formation of the bulge and/or disk. Finally, the difference that we notice between the GC and FS samples should be sought in the evolutionary difference between these two stellar populations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_05055
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Over 200 globular clusters in the Milky Way and still none with super-Solar metallicity
Garro, E. R.
Minniti, D.
Fernández-Trincado, J. G.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Many globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way (MW) have been studied in recent years, especially in hidden regions such as those of the Galactic bulge. Our main goal is to understand what we can learn if we include these new objects into the MWGC system that we know today. We catalogue 37 recently discovered GCs. We use different distributions for investigating the MWGC system: metallicity distribution (MD), luminosity function (LF), and age distribution. We first treat separately the new GCs sample from the known and well-characterised GCs. We merge these two samples, upgrading the MWGC system. We performed a comparison between our clusters sample and field star (FS) population. We find a double peaked distribution for the LF, which shows an elongated faint end tail. Considering the "merged" sample, the LF and the MDs display a bimodality trend. We construct the MD for the FS sample, and comparing this with that one of the GCs, we learn that a high percentage of FS show [Fe/H]$>0$, whereas we do not detect any GCs in the same metallicity range. In order to understand this inconsistency, we construct the age-metallicity diagram for both samples, noting that the old and metal-poor population (age$\geq8$ Gyr and [Fe/H]$\leq -1.0$) is represented by GCs, while the young and metal-rich population (age$<8$ Gyr and [Fe/H]$>-1.0$) corresponds to FS. From the analysis of the GC LF and MD, we can conclude that many GCs, probably those very faint, have survived strong dynamical processes, typical of the Bulge regions. We cannot exclude the possibility that some of them have been accreted during past merging events, especially the metal-poor component, whereas the metal-rich population may be related to the formation of the bulge and/or disk. Finally, the difference that we notice between the GC and FS samples should be sought in the evolutionary difference between these two stellar populations.
title Over 200 globular clusters in the Milky Way and still none with super-Solar metallicity
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.05055