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Home List of Titles Dynamical evolution of globular cluster systems in clusters of galaxies: the case of NGC 1404 in the Fornax Cluster
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/37239
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- Dynamical evolution of globular cluster systems in clusters of galaxies: the case of NGC 1404 in the Fornax Cluster
- Bekki, Kenji; Couch, Warrick J.; Forbes, Duncan A.; Beasley, Michael A.
- We investigate, via numerical simulations, the tidal stripping and accretion of globular clusters (GCs). In particular, we focus on creating models that simulate the situation for the GC systems of KGC 1404 and NGC 1399 in the Fornax cluster, which have poor (specific frequency SN~2) and rich (SN~10) GC systems respectively. vVe initially assign NGC 1404 in our simulation a typical SN (~5) for cluster ellipticals, and find that its GC system can only be reduced through stripping to the presently observed value, if its orbit is highly eccentric ( with orbital eccentricity of> 0.5) and if the initial scale length of the GCs system is about twice as large as the effective radius of NGC 1404 itself. These stripped GCs can be said to have formed a 'tidal stream' of intra-cluster globular clusters (ICGCs) orbiting the center of Fornax cluster (many of which would be assigned to NGC 1399 in an imaging study). The physical properties of these GCs (e.g., number, radial distribution, and kinematics) depend on the orbit and initial distribution of GCs in NGC 1404. Our simulations also predict a trend for SN to rise with increasing cluster-centric distance - a trend for which there is some observational support in the Fornax cluster. We demonstrate that since the kinematical properties of ICGCs formed by tidal stripping in the cluster tidal field depend strongly on the orbits of their previous host galaxies, observations of ICGC kinematics provides a new method for probing galaxy dynamics in a cluster.
- Publication type
- Conference paper
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing
- Highlights of Astronomy: as presented at the XXVth General Assembly of the IAU, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 13-26 July 2003, Vol. 13, p. 197
- Publication year
- Galaxy evolution; GCs; Globular clusters; NGC 1404
- Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- 9781583811894, 1583811893
- Publisher URL
- Copyright © 2005 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The published version is reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.
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