Compact Stellar Systems in the Fornax Cluster: Super-massive Star Clusters or Extremely Compact Dwarf Galaxies?

By Michael Drinkwater, J. B. Jones, M. Gregg, Steve Phillipps. Publications Astronomical Society of Australia, 2000

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Abstract We describe a population of compact objects in the centre of the Fornax Cluster which were discovered as part of our 2dF Fornax Spectroscopic Survey. These objects have spectra typical of old stellar systems, but are unresolved on photographic sky survey plates. They have absolute magnitudes −13 < MB < −11, so they are 10 times more luminous than any Galactic globular clusters, but fainter than any known compact dwarf galaxies. These objects are all within 30 arcminutes of the central galaxy of the cluster, NGC 1399, but are distributed over larger radii than the globular cluster system of that galaxy. We suggest that these objects are either super-massive star clusters (intra-cluster globular clusters or tidally stripped nuclei of dwarf galaxies) or a new type of low-luminosity, compact elliptical dwarf (‘M32-type”) galaxy. The best way to test these hypotheses will be to obtain high-resolution imaging and high-dispersion spectroscopy to determine their structures and mass-to-light ratios. This will allow us to compare them to known compact objects and establish whether they represent a new class of hitherto unknown stellar system.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Precession of the Sagittarius stream (2013, background): “With its unusually high (for a Milky Way globular cluster) luminosity of MV = −9.4, NGC 2419 may have more in common with so-called Ultra-Compact Dwarf (UCD) galaxies (Drinkwater et al. 2000) than with extended globular clusters.”
Nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “Outside the Milky Way, evidence for the survival of nuclei after tidal disruption is found in the existence of ultra-compact dwarfs (UCDs), a class of objects that constitutes the brightest compact stellar systems (Hilker et al. 1999; Drinkwater et al. 2000).”
THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COMPACT STELLAR SYSTEMS: A FRESH VIEW OF ULTRACOMPACT DWARFS (2011, background): “In the decade or so since the discovery (Hilker et al. 1999; Drinkwater et al. 2000) and naming (Phillipps et al. 2001) of Ultra Compact Dwarfs (UCDs), numerous observational studies have sought to understand where these curious objects fit in the multi-dimensional parameter space for hot…”
Galaxy threshing and the origin of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies in the Fornax cluster (2003, methodology): “A new type of sub-luminous and extremely compact “dwarf galaxy” has recently been discovered in an “allobject” spectroscopic survey centred on the Fornax cluster of galaxies (Drinkwater et al. 2000a, b).”
The Dark Matter Crisis: Falsification of the Current Standard Model of Cosmology (2012, methodology): “UCDs would be star-clusters (compare with Drinkwater et al. 2000; Mieske, Hilker & Infante 2002; Mieske, Hilker & Misgeld 2012, see also Hilker et al. 1999).”
Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies in the Fornax Cluster (2001, background): “Note that the existence of these five UCDs increases the known number of cluster dwarfs in the relevant magnitude range by about 10% if we take the number of ‘certain’ members seen in our area at slightly brighter magnitudes in Ferguson’s (1989) Fornax Cluster Catalog (FCC) and extrapolate using Fer”
From star clusters to dwarf galaxies: the properties of dynamically hot stellar systems (2008, background): “It has been almost 10 years since Hilker et al. (1999) and Drinkwater et al. (2000) discovered these transition ob- jects in the Fornax galaxy cluster.”
THE NEXT GENERATION VIRGO CLUSTER SURVEY (NGVS). I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEY (2012, background): “…decade that may hold a new clue to the origin of cEs is the discovery of numerous UCD galaxies in cluster environments (e.g., Hilker et al. 1999; Drinkwater et al. 2000, 2003; Phillipps et al. 2001; Haşegan et al. 2005; Jones et al. 2006; Blakeslee & Barber DeGraaff 2008; Madrid et al. 2010;…”
The Colors of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy Globular Cluster Systems, Nuclei, and Stellar Halos (2004, background): “Only FCC46 shows evidence for internal dust and active star-formation (Drinkwater et al. 2000).”
Galaxy Groups Within 3500 km s−1 (2017, background): “…locate star-forming compact dwarfs (Markarian et al. 1989); redshift surveys that include supposedly stellar objects identify ultracompact dwarfs (Drinkwater et al. 2000; Chiboucas et al. 2011); and wide-field imaging leads to the identification of resolved stellar systems that otherwise are not…”
The AIMSS Project I: bridging the star cluster, galaxy divide (2014, background): “It began with the discovery (Hilker et al. 1999; Drinkwater et al. 2000) in the Fornax cluster of a population of generally old and compact objects with luminosity/mass and size intermediate between those of globular clusters (GCs) and the few then-known compact elliptical galaxies (cEs).”