The mysterious Globular Cluster population of MATLAS-2019

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Arencibia, Sergio Guerra, Montes, Mireia, Golini, Giulia, Trujillo, Ignacio
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914320107962368
author Arencibia, Sergio Guerra
Montes, Mireia
Golini, Giulia
Trujillo, Ignacio
author_facet Arencibia, Sergio Guerra
Montes, Mireia
Golini, Giulia
Trujillo, Ignacio
contents MATLAS-2019 (also known as NGC5846-UDG1) has attracted significant attention due to the ongoing debate surrounding its Globular Cluster (GC) population, with several studies addressing the issue yet reaching little consensus. In this paper we take advantage of HST's multi-wavelength coverage (F475W, F606W and F814W observations) with the addition of deep u-band imaging from Gran Telescopio de Canarias, to perform the most detailed study and estimation to date of the GC population of the ultra-diffuse galaxy MATLAS-2019. The improved constraints provided by the combination of high spatial resolution and better coverage of the GC spectral energy distribution has allowed us to obtain a clean sample of GCs in this galaxy. We report a number of 33+-3 GCs in MATLAS-2019, supporting the previous lower estimates for this galaxy. The GC population of this galaxy is highly concentrated with ~80% of the GCs inside the effective radius (Re) of the galaxy and the GC half-number radius Re,GC is 0.7Re. Using the GC-Halo mass relation, we estimate a halo mass for MATLAS-2019 of (1.14+-0.1)x10**11 solar masses. The GC luminosity function and the distribution of effective radii of the GCs favour a distance to the galaxy of 20.0+-0.9 Mpc. In agreement with previous findings, we find that the distribution of GCs is highly asymmetric even though the distribution of stars in the galaxy is symmetric. This suggests that assumptions about the symmetry of the GC distribution may be incorrect when used to calculate the number of GCs with such low statistics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_09990
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The mysterious Globular Cluster population of MATLAS-2019
Arencibia, Sergio Guerra
Montes, Mireia
Golini, Giulia
Trujillo, Ignacio
Astrophysics of Galaxies
MATLAS-2019 (also known as NGC5846-UDG1) has attracted significant attention due to the ongoing debate surrounding its Globular Cluster (GC) population, with several studies addressing the issue yet reaching little consensus. In this paper we take advantage of HST's multi-wavelength coverage (F475W, F606W and F814W observations) with the addition of deep u-band imaging from Gran Telescopio de Canarias, to perform the most detailed study and estimation to date of the GC population of the ultra-diffuse galaxy MATLAS-2019. The improved constraints provided by the combination of high spatial resolution and better coverage of the GC spectral energy distribution has allowed us to obtain a clean sample of GCs in this galaxy. We report a number of 33+-3 GCs in MATLAS-2019, supporting the previous lower estimates for this galaxy. The GC population of this galaxy is highly concentrated with ~80% of the GCs inside the effective radius (Re) of the galaxy and the GC half-number radius Re,GC is 0.7Re. Using the GC-Halo mass relation, we estimate a halo mass for MATLAS-2019 of (1.14+-0.1)x10**11 solar masses. The GC luminosity function and the distribution of effective radii of the GCs favour a distance to the galaxy of 20.0+-0.9 Mpc. In agreement with previous findings, we find that the distribution of GCs is highly asymmetric even though the distribution of stars in the galaxy is symmetric. This suggests that assumptions about the symmetry of the GC distribution may be incorrect when used to calculate the number of GCs with such low statistics.
title The mysterious Globular Cluster population of MATLAS-2019
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09990