Eric W. Peng

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey XV. The Formation Efficiencies of Globular Clusters in Early-Type Galaxies: The Effects of Mass and Environment

The fraction of stellar mass contained in globular clusters (GCs), also measured by number as the specific frequency, is a fundamental quantity that reflects both a galaxys early star formation and its entire merging history. We present specific frequencies, luminosities, and mass fractions for the globular cluster systems of 100 early-type galaxies in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey, the largest homogeneous catalog of its kind. We find the following: (1) GC mass fractions can be high in both giants and dwarfs but are universally low in galaxies with intermediate luminosities. (2) The behavior of specific frequency across galaxy mass is dominated by the blue GCs. (3) GC fractions of low-mass galaxies exhibit a dependence on environment. Nearly all dwarf galaxies with high GC fractions are within 1 Mpc of the cD galaxy M87, presenting the first strong evidence that GC formation in dwarfs is biased toward dense environments. (4) GC formation in central dwarfs is biased because their stars form earliest and most intensely. Comparisons to the Millennium Simulation show that central dwarfs have older stellar populations and form more stars at higher star formation rates (SFRs) and SFR surface densities. The SFR surface density in simulated dwarfs peaks before the total SFR, naturally producing GC populations that are older and more metal-poor than the field stars. (5) Dwarfs within ~40 kpc of the giant ellipticals M87 and M49 are red and have few or no GCs, suggesting that they have been tidally stripped and have contributed their GCs to the halos of their giant neighbors. The central dwarfs with high GC mass fractions are thus likely to be the survivors most similar to the protogalaxies that assembled the rich M87 globular cluster system.

THE HST/ACS COMA CLUSTER SURVEY. II. DATA DESCRIPTION AND SOURCE CATALOGS ∗

The Coma cluster, Abell 1656, was the target of an HST-ACS Treasury program designed for deep imaging in the F475W and F814W passbands. Although our survey was interrupted by the ACS instrument failure in early 2007, the partially completed survey still covers ~50% of the core high-density region in Coma. Observations were performed for 25 fields that extend over a wide range of cluster-centric radii (~1.75 Mpc or 1°) with a total coverage area of 274 arcmin2. The majority of the fields are located near the core region of Coma (19/25 pointings) with six additional fields in the southwest region of the cluster. In this paper, we present reprocessed images and SEXTRACTOR source catalogs for our survey fields, including a detailed description of the methodology used for object detection and photometry, the subtraction of bright galaxies to measure faint underlying objects, and the use of simulations to assess the photometric accuracy and completeness of our catalogs. We also use simulations to perform aperture corrections for the SEXTRACTOR Kron magnitudes based only on the measured source flux and its half-light radius. We have performed photometry for ~73,000 unique objects; approximately one-half of our detections are brighter than the 10σ point-source detection limit at F814W = 25.8 mag (AB). The slight majority of objects (60%) are unresolved or only marginally resolved by ACS. We estimate that Coma members are 5%-10% of all source detections, which consist of a large population of unresolved compact sources (primarily globular clusters but also ultra-compact dwarf galaxies) and a wide variety of extended galaxies from a cD galaxy to dwarf low surface brightness galaxies. The red sequence of Coma member galaxies has a color-magnitude relation with a constant slope and dispersion over 9 mag (–21 < M F814W < –13). The initial data release for the HST-ACS Coma Treasury program was made available to the public in 2008 August. The images and catalogs described in this study relate to our second data release.

THE COLOR-MAGNITUDE RELATION FOR METAL-POOR GLOBULAR CLUSTERS IN M87: CONFIRMATION FROM DEEP HST/ACS IMAGING

Metal-poor globular clusters (GCs) are our local link to the earliest epochs of star formation and galaxy building. Studies of extragalactic GC systems using deep, high-quality imaging have revealed a small but significant slope to the color-magnitude relation for metal-poor GCs in a number of galaxies. We present a study of the M87 GC system using deep, archival HST/ACS imaging with the F606W and F814W filters, in which we find a significant color-magnitude relation for the metal-poor GCs. The slope of this relation in the I versus V-I color-magnitude diagram (γ I = –0.024 ± 0.006) is perfectly consistent with expectations based on previously published results using data from the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. The relation is driven by the most luminous GCs, those with MI –10, and its significance is largest when fitting metal-poor GCs brighter than MI = –7.8, a luminosity which is ~1 mag fainter than our fitted Gaussian mean for the luminosity function (LF) of blue, metal-poor GCs (~0.8 mag fainter than the mean for all GCs). These results indicate that there is a mass scale at which the correlation begins, and is consistent with a scenario where self-enrichment drives a mass-metallicity relationship. We show that previously measured half-light radii of M87 GCs from best-fit PSF-convolved King models are consistent with the more accurate measurements in this study, and we also explain how the color-magnitude relation for metal-poor GCs is real and cannot be an artifact of the photometry. We fit Gaussian and evolved Schechter functions to the luminosity distribution of GCs across all colors, as well as divided into blue and red subpopulations, finding that the blue GCs have a brighter mean luminosity and a narrower distribution than the red GCs. Finally, we present a catalog of astrometry and photometry for 2250 M87 GCs.

The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey : IV. Intergalactic Globular Clusters and the Massive Globular Cluster System at the Core of the Coma Galaxy Cluster

Intracluster stellar populations are a natural result of tidal interactions in galaxy clusters. Measuring these populations is difficult, but important for understanding the assembly of the most massive galaxies. The Coma cluster of galaxies is one of the nearest truly massive galaxy clusters and is host to a correspondingly large system of globular clusters (GCs). We use imaging from the HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey to present the first definitive detection of a large population of intracluster GCs (IGCs) that fills the Coma cluster core and is not associated with individual galaxies. The GC surface density profile around the central massive elliptical galaxy, NGC 4874, is dominated at large radii by a population of IGCs that extend to the limit of our data (R <520 kpc). We estimate that there are 47, 000 ± 1600 (random) +4000 -5000 (systematic) IGCs out to this radius, and that they make up ~70% of the central GC system, making this the largest GC system in the nearby universe. Even including the GC systems of other cluster galaxies, the IGCs still make up ~30%-45% of the GCs in the cluster core. Observational limits from previous studies of the intracluster light (ICL) suggest that the IGC population has a high specific frequency. If the IGC population has a specific frequency similar to high-SN dwarf galaxies, then the ICL has a mean surface brightness of μ V ≈ 27 mag arcsec-2 and a total stellar mass of roughly 10^{12} {M}_⊙ within the cluster core. The ICL makes up approximately half of the stellar luminosity and one-third of the stellar mass of the central (NGC 4874+ICL) system. The color distribution of the IGC population is bimodal, with blue, metal-poor GCs outnumbering red, metal-rich GCs by a ratio of 4:1. The inner GCs associated with NGC 4874 also have a bimodal distribution in color, but with a redder metal-poor population. The fraction of red IGCs (20%), and the red color of those GCs, implies that IGCs can originate from the halos of relatively massive, L* galaxies, and not solely from the disruption of dwarf galaxies. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

Galaxies at the Extremes: Ultra-diffuse Galaxies in the Virgo Cluster

We report the discovery of three large (R29 >~ 1 arcminute) extremely low surface brightness (mu_(V,0) ~ 27.0) galaxies identified using our deep, wide-field imaging of the Virgo Cluster from the Burrell Schmidt telescope. Complementary data from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey do not resolve red giant branch stars in these objects down to i=24, yielding a lower distance limit of 2.5 Mpc. At the Virgo distance, these objects have half-light radii 3-10 kpc and luminosities L_V=2-9x10^7 Lsun. These galaxies are comparable in size but lower in surface brightness than the large ultradiffuse LSB galaxies recently identified in the Coma cluster, and are located well within Virgos virial radius; two are projected directly on the cluster core. One object appears to be a nucleated LSB in the process of being tidally stripped to form a new Virgo ultracompact dwarf galaxy. The others show no sign of tidal disruption, despite the fact that such objects should be most vulnerable to tidal destruction in the cluster environment. The relative proximity of Virgo makes these objects amenable to detailed studies of their structural properties and stellar populations. They thus provide an important new window onto the connection between cluster environment and galaxy evolution at the extremes.

The advanced camera for Surveys Fornax Cluster Survey. vii. half-light radii of globular clusters in early-type galaxies

We measure the half-light radii of globular clusters (GCs) in 43 galaxies from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Fornax Cluster Survey. We use these data to extend previous work in which the environmental dependencies of the half-light radii of GCs in early-type galaxies in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey were studied, and a corrected mean half-light radius (corrected for the observed environmental trends) was suggested as a reliable distance indicator. This work both increases the sample size for the study of the environmental dependencies, and adds leverage to the study of the corrected half-light radius as a possible distance indicator (since Fornax lies at a larger distance than the Virgo cluster). We study the environmental dependencies of the size of GCs using both a Principal Component Analysis as well as two-dimensional scaling relations. We largely confirm the environmental dependencies shown in Jord?n et al., but find evidence that there is a residual correlation in the mean half-light radius of GC systems with galaxy magnitude, and subtle differences in the other correlations?so there may not be a universal correction for the half-light radii of lower luminosity galaxy GC systems. The main factor determining the size of a GC in an early-type galaxy is the GC color. Red GCs have rh = 2.8 ? 0.3 pc, while blue GCs have rh = 3.4 ? 0.3 pc. We show that for bright early-type galaxies (MB < ?19 mag), the uncorrected mean half-light radius of the GC system is by itself an excellent distance indicator (with error ~11%), having the potential to reach cosmologically interesting distances in the era of high angular resolution adaptive optics on large optical telescopes.

Stripped gas as fuel for newly formed H ii regions in the encounter between VCC 1249 and M 49: a unified picture from NGVS and GUViCS

Context. We study the peculiar interacting galaxy system of VCC 1249/M 49 located in the core of the Virgo B subcluster. Owing to a recent interaction between the dwarf galaxy VCC 1249 and the halo gas of the elliptical galaxy M 49, neutral hydrogen has been displaced from the interstellar medium of this dwarf into the Virgo intracluster medium. Observations also reveal multiple compact star-forming regions (aka H  II regions) that are embedded in this H  I cloud, with a projected separation up to 13 kpc from VCC 1249 in the northwest direction. Aims. Motivated by recent near-ultraviolet imaging from the GALEX Ultraviolet Virgo Cluster Survey (GUViCS) of the VCC 1249/M 49 system that shows significant ongoing/recent star formation in the compact regions, we aim to constrain the origin of these outlying H  II regions with a multi-wavelength approach. Methods. Using deep optical (u,g,i,z) imaging from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS) and new Hα imaging obtained at the San Pedro Martir observatory together with Keck long-slit spectroscopy, we characterize the star formation rates, ages, and metallicity of VCC 1249 and its outlying compact regions. Moreover, we analyze the color and luminosity profile of the galaxy to investigate its recent interaction with M 49. Results. Our new observations indicate that VCC 1249 underwent a recent interaction with M 49 in which both ram-pressure stripping and tidal interaction occured. The joint action of the two mechanisms led to the removal of the H  I gas from the interstellar medium of VCC 1249, while the gravitational tides triggered the stellar tail and counter-tail of VCC 1249. Our stellar population synthesis analysis reveals that the star formation in this galaxy was truncated around 200 Myr ago and that the outlying H  II regions were born in situ ≈10 Myr ago out of pre-enriched gas removed from the dwarf galaxy. These observations also reveal that interactions between central and satellite galaxies similar to those between VCC 1249/M 49 may be an effective way of dispersing metals into the halos of massive galaxies.

THE ACS FORNAX CLUSTER SURVEY. X. COLOR GRADIENTS OF GLOBULAR CLUSTER SYSTEMS IN EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES*

We use the largest homogeneous sample of globular clusters (GCs), drawn from the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey (ACSVCS) and ACS Fornax Cluster Survey (ACSFCS), to investigate the color gradients of GC systems in 76 early-type galaxies. We find that most GC systems possess an obvious negative gradient in (g-z) color with radius (bluer outward), which is consistent with previous work. For GC systems displaying color bimodality, both metal-rich and metal-poor GC subpopulations present shallower but significant color gradients on average, and the mean color gradients of these two subpopulations are of roughly equal strength. The field of view of ACS mainly restricts us to measuring the inner gradients of the studied GC systems. These gradients, however, can introduce an aperture bias when measuring the mean colors of GC subpopulations from relatively narrow central pointings. Inferred corrections to previous work imply a reduced significance for the relation between the mean color of metal-poor GCs and their host galaxy luminosity. The GC color gradients also show a dependence with host galaxy mass where the gradients are weakest at the ends of the mass spectrum—in massive galaxies and dwarf galaxies—and strongest in galaxies of intermediate mass, around a stellar mass of . We also measure color gradients for field stars in the host galaxies. We find that GC color gradients are systematically steeper than field star color gradients, but the shape of the gradient-mass relation is the same for both. If gradients are caused by rapid dissipational collapse and weakened by merging, these color gradients support a picture where the inner GC systems of most intermediate-mass and massive galaxies formed early and rapidly with the most massive galaxies having experienced greater merging. The lack of strong gradients in the GC systems of dwarfs, which probably have not experienced many recent major mergers, suggests that low-mass halos were inefficient at retaining and mixing metals during the epoch of GC formation.

Nonlinear Color-Metallicity Relations of Globular Clusters. III. On the Discrepancy in Metallicity between Globular Cluster Systems and Their Parent Elliptical Galaxies

One of the conundrums in extragalactic astronomy is the discrepancy in observed metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) between the two prime stellar components of early-type galaxies—globular clusters (GCs) and halo field stars. This is generally taken as evidence of highly decoupled evolutionary histories between GC systems and their parent galaxies. Here we show, however, that new developments in linking the observed GC colors to their intrinsic metallicities suggest nonlinear color-to-metallicity conversions, which translate observed color distributions into strongly peaked, unimodal MDFs with broad metal-poor tails. Remarkably, the inferred GC MDFs are similar to the MDFs of resolved field stars in nearby elliptical galaxies and those produced by chemical evolution models of galaxies. The GC MDF shape, characterized by a sharp peak with a metal-poor tail, indicates a virtually continuous chemical enrichment with a relatively short timescale. The characteristic shape emerges across three orders of magnitude in the host galaxy mass, suggesting a universal process of chemical enrichment among various GC systems. Given that GCs are bluer than field stars within the same galaxy, it is plausible that the chemical enrichment processes of GCs ceased somewhat earlier than that of the field stellar population, and if so, GCs preferentially trace the major, vigorous mode of star formation events in galactic formation. We further suggest a possible systematic age difference among GC systems, in that the GC systems in more luminous galaxies are older. This is consistent with the downsizing paradigm whereby stars of brighter galaxies, on average, formed earlier than those of dimmer galaxies; this additionally supports the similar nature shared by GCs and field stars. Although the sample used in this study (the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys/Wide Field Channel, WFPC2, and WFC3 photometry for the GC systems in the Virgo galaxy cluster) confines our discussion to R Re for giant ellipticals and 10 Re for normal ellipticals, our findings suggest that GC systems and their parent galaxies have shared a more common origin than previously thought, and hence greatly simplify theories of galaxy formation.

The rich globular cluster system of Abell 1689 and the radial dependence of the globular cluster formation efficiency

We study the rich globular cluster (GC) system in the center of the massive cluster of galaxies Abell 1689 (z = 0.18), one of the most powerful gravitational lenses known. With 28 Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys orbits in the F814W bandpass, we reach a magnitude I814 = 29 with 90% completeness and sample the brightest ∼5% of the GC system. Assuming the well-known Gaussian form of the GC luminosity function (GCLF), we estimate a total population of N total GC = 162,850 +75,450 −51,310 GCs within a projected radius of 400 kpc. As many as half of the GCs may comprise an intracluster component. Even with the sizable uncertainties, which mainly result from the uncertain GCLF parameters, this system is by far the largest GC population studied to date. The specific frequency SN is high, but not uncommon for central galaxies in massive clusters, rising from SN ≈ 5 near the center to ∼12 at large radii. Passive galaxy fading would increase SN by ∼20% at z = 0. We construct the radial mass profiles of the GCs, stars, intracluster gas, and lensing-derived total mass, and we compare the mass fractions as a function of radius. The estimated mass in GCs, M total = 3.9 × 10 10 M� , is comparable to ∼80% of the total stellar mass of the Milky Way. The shape of the GC mass profile appears intermediate between those of the stellar light and total cluster mass. Despite the extreme nature of this system, the ratios of the GC mass to the baryonic and total masses, and thus the GC formation efficiency, are typical of those in other rich clusters when comparing at the same physical radii. The GC formation efficiency is not constant, but varies with radius, in a manner that appears similar for different clusters; we speculate on the reasons for this similarity in profile.