Mayall II = G1 in M31: Giant Globular Cluster or Core of a Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy?

By G. Meylan, A. Sarajedini, P. Jablonka, S. George Djorgovski, T. Bridges, R. Rich. 2001

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

At the moment, only the anticorrelation of metallicity with age recently observed in ω Centauri suggests that this cluster enriched itself over a timescale of about 3 Gyr. This contradicts the general idea that all the stars in a globular cluster are coeval and may favor the origin of ω Centauri as being the remaining core of a larger entity, e.g., of a former nucleated dwarf elliptical galaxy. In any case, the very massive globular clusters, by the mere fact that their large masses imply complicated stellar and dynamical evolution, may blur the former clear (or simplistic) difference between globular clusters and dwarf galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4e121cd3b6e9fc2ea27ba456b133635849db4860

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Citations in the corpus

Hubble Space Telescope STIS Spectra of Nuclear Star Clusters in Spiral Galaxies: Dependence of Age and Mass on Hubble Type (2006, background): “On the other hand, some of the most massive GCs in the Local Group, such as ωCen in the Milky Way (Meylan 2002) and G1 in M31 (Meylan et al. 2001), and in other nearby galaxies such as CenA (Martini & Ho 2004) have masses that overlap with the low-mass end of the NC mass distribution.”
From Supermassive Black Holes to Dwarf Elliptical Nuclei: A Mass Continuum (2006, background): “…6715,q Cen, or M31-G1, are thought to be the relic nuclei of satellite dE,N galaxies that have been tidally stripped and absorbed by their bigger parents (e.g., Freeman 1993; Zinnecker et al. 1988; Layden & Sarajedini 2000; Majewski et al. 2000; Meylan et al. 2001; McWilliam & Smecker-Hane 2005).”
An Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Globular Cluster G1: Improved Significance from New Keck and Hubble Space Telescope Observations (2005, methodology): “Given an age of around 13 Gyr for G1 (Meylan et al. 2001) and a turnoff mass of around 0.9 M , massive giant stars tend to dominate the light in the core; even though there are remnants in the core, the combinedM /L tends to remain constant.”
From star clusters to dwarf galaxies: the properties of dynamically hot stellar systems (2008, background): “However, this is not necessarily the case for the stars in MCOs, as the examples of ω Cen (e.g. Kayser et al. 2006; Villanova et al. 2007) and G1 (Meylan et al. 2001) show.”
Abundance Variations within Globular Clusters (2004, background): “This is probably related to its unique spread in metal abundance: Similar spreads have recently been proposed for the most massive clusters in M31 (Meylan et al. 2001), and may indeed be a general property of very massive GCs.”
Quantifying the coexistence of massive black holes and dense nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “…plausible alternative scenarios yet to be properly ruled out (Baumgardt et al. 2003b Brightening the cluster's published absolute V -band magnitude (Meylan et al. 2001) by 0.1 mag for our new distance, and by 0.2 mag for Galactic extinction , its magnitude of −11.24 mag implies a stellar mass of…”
The Coincidence of Nuclear Star Clusters and Active Galactic Nuclei (2008, background): “Finally, the globular cluster G1 in Andromeda, proposed to be the stripped nuclear star cluster of a dwarf galaxy (Meylan et al. 2001), also has an available measurement of MBH/MNC .”
Globular Cluster Systems in Brightest Cluster Galaxies: Bimodal Metallicity Distributions and the Nature of the High-Luminosity Clusters (2005, background): “M31-G1 particularly is near the very maximum of the mass range that globular clusters reach in the real universe.”
NEW LIMITS ON AN INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLE IN OMEGA CENTAURI. II. DYNAMICAL MODELS (2009, background): “Both clusters have been suggested to be the stripped nuclei of larger galaxies (e.g., Freeman 1993; Meylan et al. 2001).”
The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VII. Resolving the Connection between Globular Clusters and Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies (2005, methodology): “In the scaling relations shown in Figures 7–11, we plot the location of globular clusters belonging to the Galaxy (McLaughlin & van der Marel 2005), M31 (using the data collated in McLaughlin & van der Marel 2005) and NGC 5128 (Martini & Ho 2004; Harris et al. 2002), Local Group dSph galaxies (Mateo”
Implications for the formation of star clusters from extragalactic star formation rates (2004, background): “The most massive “clusters” known, e.g. ω Cen (a few 106 M⊙, Gnedin et al. 2002) or G1 (≈ 15 × 106 M⊙, Meylan et al. 2001) consist of complex stellar populations with different metalicities and ages (Hilker & Richtler 2000).”
Formation of Massive Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. I. Mass Segregation and Core Collapse (2003, background): “M15 and G1 also have long half-mass relaxation times (∼ 1 Gyr for M15, Dull et al. 1997, and 30 − 50 Gyr for G1, Baumgardt et al. 2003b; Meylan et al. 2001) indicating that the process we envision could only have taken place if these clusters were born with much more centrally concentrated density…”
Multiple Stellar Populations in Three Rich Large Magellanic Cloud Star Clusters (2008, background): “In addition, several massive globular clusters in M31, including G1, apparently possess significant internal spreads in metal abundance (Meylan et al. 2001; Fuentes-Carrera et al. 2008).”
Evidence for Stellar Substructure in the Halo and Outer Disk of M31 (2002, background): “G1 is among the most luminous and most massive globular clusters in M31 and is rather unique in having an intrinsic metallicity spread suggestive of self-enrichment (Meylan et al. 2001).”
Masses of Star Clusters in the Nuclei of Bulgeless Spiral Galaxies (2004, background): “G1, the most massive globular cluster of M31 (Meylan et al. 2001, Baumgardt et al 2003) is also pointed out as a filled triangle.”
Galaxy threshing and the origin of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies in the Fornax cluster (2003, methodology): “Furthermore, the shapes of the simulated nuclei (or UCDs) in the GC merger scenario depends on the kinemat- ics of the GC’s host dwarf galaxy, such that dwarfs with more rotational energy (i.g., larger V/σ) are likely to have more flattened nuclei (Bekki et al. 2003).”
A double main-sequence turn-off in the rich star cluster NGC 1846 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2007, background): “The only clusters where multiple episodes of star formation appear evident are globular clusters at the very upper end of the globular cluster mass function, such as ω Centauri (e.g., Villanova et al. 2007), and G1 in M31 (Meylan et al. 2001).”
A New Sample of Low-Mass Black Holes in Active Galaxies (2007, background): “However, the mixed stellar population and high degree of rotational support in this massive cluster suggest that G1 is actually the nucleus of a tidally stripped dwarf galaxy (e.g., Meylan et al. 2001).”
Formation of ω Centauri from an Ancient Nucleated Dwarf Galaxy (2003, background): “…the Galactic halo stars with [Fe/H] ∼ −1.2 and Lz ∼ −500 and Lxy ∼ 300 kpc km s −1 can originate from ω Cen’s host. ω Cen-like objects have been already discovered in other galaxies and environments: G1 in M31 (e.g., Meylan et al. 2001) and very bright G1-like cluster in NGC 1023 (Larsen 2001).”