The Colors of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy Globular Cluster Systems, Nuclei, and Stellar Halos

By J. Lotz, B. Miller, H. Ferguson. 2004

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We present the results of a Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 F555W and F814W survey of 69 dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) in the Virgo and Fornax Clusters and Leo Group. The V - I colors of the dE globular clusters, nuclei, and underlying field-star populations are used to trace the dE star formation histories. We find that the dE globular cluster candidates are as blue as the metal-poor globular clusters of the Milky Way. The observed correlation of the dE globular cluster systems' V - I color with the luminosity of the host dE is strong evidence that the globular clusters were formed within the halos of dEs and do not have a pregalactic origin. Assuming that the majority of dE clusters are old, the mean globular cluster color-host galaxy luminosity correlation implies a cluster metallicity-galaxy luminosity relation of ⟨ZGC⟩ ∝ L, which is significantly shallower than the field-star metallicity-host galaxy luminosity relationship observed in Local Group dwarfs (⟨ZFS⟩ ∝ L0.4). The dE stellar envelopes are 0.1-0.2 mag redder in V - I than their globular clusters and nuclei. This color offset implies separate star formation episodes within the dEs for the clusters and field stars, while the very blue colors of two dE nuclei trace a third star formation event in those dEs less than 1 Gyr ago.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/043be7e2280d6f6598ae7bb71394521eb804e254

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Citations in the corpus

• Masses and scaling relations for nuclear star clusters, and their co-existence with central black holes (2016, unknown): “…massive black hole (SMBH), with NSCs being identified in more than > 60− 70% of early- (e.g. Durrell 1997; Carollo et al. 1998; Geha et al. 2002; Lotz et al. 2004; Côté et al. 2006; Turner et al. 2012; den Brok et al. 2014) and late-type galaxies (e.g. Böker et al. 2002, 2004; Balcells et al.…”
• Globular Clusters in Virgo Ellipticals: Unexpected Results for Giants and Dwarfs from Advanced Camera for Surveys Imaging (2005, background): “Themetallicities of these peaks correlate with host galaxy luminosity (Larsen et al. 2001; Strader et al. 2004; see also Lotz et al. 2004 for dwarfs).”
• The effect of gas fraction on the morphology and time-scales of disc galaxy mergers (2009, background): “(These measures are designed to be independent of size, therefore are not affected by physical size alone – see Lotz et al. 2004).”
• Galaxy merger morphologies and time-scales from simulations of equal-mass gas-rich disc mergers (2008, methodology): “…and position angle are then used to calculate the Petrosian radii in circular and elliptical apertures, concentration, asymmetry, clumpiness, the Gini coefficient, and the second-order moment of the brightest 20% of the light (see Lotz et al. 2004 and Conselice 2003 for further details).”
• Extragalactic Globular Clusters and Galaxy Formation (2006, background): “Lotz et al. (2001) suggested several explanations for the lack of observable consequences of dynamical friction, including extended dark matter halos around dEs, or tidal torquing of GCs (this latter explanation was also proposed for the Fornax dSph by Oh et al. 2000).”
• From Supermassive Black Holes to Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei: A Mass Continuum (2006, methodology): “…between CMO masses and the luminosity of their surrounding spheroid: the dE,N nuclei data are taken from the high-resolutionHST WFPC2 imaging of Lotz et al. (2004), and the SBH data from the compilations of Ferrarese terson & Caldwell 1993; De Rijcke et al. 2001; Geha et al. 2002) givea in the…”
• THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COMPACT STELLAR SYSTEMS: A FRESH VIEW OF ULTRACOMPACT DWARFS (2011, result): “Such a correlation was formerly linked to similar trends reported for dwarf and massive galaxy nuclei at the brighter levels (Lotz et al. 2004; Côté et al. 2006; Norris & Kannappan 2011) and was cited in support of the threshed nuclei origin for UCDs (Evstigneeva et al. 2008).”
• THE SINS SURVEY OF z ∼ 2 GALAXY KINEMATICS: PROPERTIES OF THE GIANT STAR-FORMING CLUMPS (2010, background): “These clumpy, asymmetric structures often resemble z ∼ 0 mergers (Conselice et al. 2003; Lotz et al. 2004).”
• Virgo Cluster Early-Type Dwarf Galaxies with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. III. Subpopulations: Distributions, Shapes, Origins (2007, methodology): “…then compute the parameters defining an elliptical aperture (axial ratio and position angle) from the image moments (Abraham et al. 1994), and derive a “Petrosian semimajor axis” ap, i.e., we use ellipses instead of circles in the calculation of the Petrosian radius (see, e.g., Lotz et al. 2004a).”
• A Fundamental Relation between Compact Stellar Nuclei, Supermassive Black Holes, and Their Host Galaxies (2006, background): “%) of early-type galaxies (Côté et al. 2006; see also Lotz et al. 2004; Graham & Guzman 2003; Grant et al. 2005).”
• The effect of mass ratio on the morphology and time-scales of disc galaxy mergers: Effect of mass ratio on merger morphology (2009, background): “Lotz et al. (2004) found that local ultra-luminous galaxies visually classified as mergers could be distinguished from the sequence of normal Hubble type galaxies with G > −0.115 M20 + 0.384 (1) or G > −0.4 A + 0.66 or A ≥ 0.4 (2) Asymmetry alone is also often used to classify merger candidates.”
• Globular Cluster Systems in Brightest Cluster Galaxies: Bimodal Metallicity Distributions and the Nature of the High-Luminosity Clusters (2005, methodology): “• The globular clusters in dwarf elliptical galaxies are almost entirely of low metallic- ity, consistent with their having evolved directly from protogalactic gas clouds that experienced few or no mergers (Durrell et al. 1996a; Lotz et al. 2004).”
• Quantifying the coexistence of massive black holes and dense nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “As noted above, in low-mass spheroids it has been known for some years how the stellar flux ratio of the nucleus and host spheroid vary (see also Lotz et al. 2004, their Figure 7).”
• DISSIPATIONLESS FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE MILKY WAY NUCLEAR STAR CLUSTER (2011, background): “Observations of NSCs in dwarf elliptical galaxies suggest that the majority of such nuclei might have formed in this way (Lotz et al. 2004).”
• A CATALOG OF GLOBULAR CLUSTER SYSTEMS: WHAT DETERMINES THE SIZE OF A GALAXY'S GLOBULAR CLUSTER POPULATION? (2013, background): “…internally homogeneous, such as for the Virgo cluster galaxies (Peng et al. 2006), the Fornax cluster (Villegas et al. 2010), nearby dwarf galaxies (Lotz et al. 2004; Georgiev et al. 2008, 2009), nearby E and S0 galaxies (Kundu & Whitmore 2001a,b; Larsen et al. 2001), and supergiant E galaxies…”
• THE MAJOR AND MINOR GALAXY MERGER RATES AT z < 1.5 (2011, background): “When G is combined with M20, the second-order moment of the brightest 20% of the light, local spiral and elliptical galaxies follow a well-defined sequence and local mergers have higher G and and higher M20 values (Lotz et al. 2004).”
• The Origin of Dwarf Ellipticals in the Virgo Cluster (2008, background): “17 for VCC 710.”