The VISTA Variables in the Via Láctea Extended Survey (VVVX) allows probing previously unexplored regions of the inner Milky Way (MW). We are looking for new candidate globular clusters (GCs), with the aim of completing the census of the MW GC system. We searched and characterised new GCs, using a combination of the near-IR VVVX survey and 2MASS datasets, and the optical Gaia EDR3 photometry and its precise proper motions (PMs). We report the discovery of a new Galactic GC, named Garro 02, situated at RA=18:05:51.1, Dec=-17:42:02 and l=12.042 deg, b=+1.656 deg. Performing a PM-decontamination procedure, we built a final catalogue with all cluster members, on which we performed a photometric analysis. We calculated a reddening of $E(J-K_s)=1.07\pm 0.06$ mag and extinction of $A_{Ks}=0.79\pm 0.04$ mag in the near-IR; while $E(BP-RP)=2.40\pm 0.01$ mag and $A_{G}=4.80\pm 0.02$ mag in optical passbands. Its heliocentric distance is $D=5.6\pm 0.8$ kpc, which places Garro 02 at a Galactocentric distance of $R_G=2.9$ kpc and Z=0.006 kpc above the Galactic plane. We estimated the metallicity and age by comparison with known GCs and by fitting PARSEC isochrones, finding [Fe/H]$=-1.30\pm 0.2$ dex and age=$12\pm 2$ Gyr. We derived the mean cluster PM of $(μ_α^{\ast}, μ_δ) = (-6.07\pm 0.62, -6.15\pm 0.75)$ mas yr$^{-1}$. We calculated the cluster luminosity in the near-IR of $M_{Ks}=-7.52\pm 1.23$ mag, which is equivalent to $M_{V}=-5.44$ mag. The core and tidal radii from the radial density profile are $r_c =1.25\pm 0.27$ arcmin (2.07 pc) and $r_t = 7.13\pm 3.83$ arcmin (11.82 pc), respectively. We confirm Garro 02 as a new genuine Galactic GC, located in the MW bulge. It is a low-luminosity, metal-poor, and old GC, and it is a lucky survivor of the strong dynamical processes that occurred during the MW's entire life.
Milky Way globular clusters (MW GCs) are difficult to identify at low Galactic latitudes because of high differential extinction and heavy star crowding. The new deep near-IR images and photometry from the VISTA Variables in the Via Láctea Extended Survey (VVVX) allow us to chart previously unexplored regions. Our long term aim is to complete the census of MW GCs. The immediate goals are to estimate the astrophysical parameters, measuring their reddenings, extinctions, distances, total luminosities, proper motions, sizes, metallicities and ages. We use the near-IR VVVX survey database, in comb…
A near-infrared stellar atlas of the Galactic plane from the VVVX survey
Universidad de Antofagasta（安托法加斯塔大学）；Millennium Institute of Astrophysics（天体物理学千年研究所）；Universidad Andrés Bello（安德烈斯·贝略大学）；Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina（圣卡塔琳娜联邦大学）；Vatican Observatory（梵蒂冈天文台）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Universidad de Valparaíso（瓦尔帕莱索大学）
Context. Globular clusters (GCs) are witnesses of the past accretion events onto the Milky Way (MW). In particular, the GCs of the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf galaxy are important probes of an on-going merger. Aims. Our main goal is to search for new GC members of this dwarf galaxy using the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea Extended Survey (VVVX) near-infrared database combined with the Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) optical database. Methods. We investigated all VVVX-enabled discoveries of GC candidates in a region covering about 180 sq. deg. toward the bulge and the Sgr dwarf galaxy. We used …
A Newly Discovered VVVX Star Cluster Surfing the Galactic Disk
ESO - European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins（贝尔纳多·奥希金斯大学）；Universidad Andres Bello（安德烈斯·贝略大学）；Vatican Observatory（梵蒂冈天文台）；Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina（圣卡塔琳娜联邦大学）；Universidad de Antofagasta（安托法加斯塔大学）；Universidade de Sao Paulo, IAG（圣保罗大学天体物理学和地球物理学院）
Context. The globular cluster (GC) system of Circinus galaxy has not been probed previously partly because of the location of the galaxy at - 3.8$^\circ$ Galactic latitude which suffers severely from interstellar extinction, stellar crowding, and Galactic foreground contamination. However, the deep near-infrared (NIR) photometry by the VISTA Variables in the Via Láctea Extended Survey (VVVX) in combination with the precise astrometry of Gaia EDR3 allow us to map GCs in this region. Aims. Our long-term goal is to study and characterise the distributions of GCs and Ultra-compact dwarfs of Circin…
There is an increasing number of recent observational results which show that some globular clusters exhibit internal rotation while they travel along their orbital trajectories around the Milky Way center. Based on these findings, we looked for any relationship between the inclination angles of the globular clusters' orbits with respect to the Milky Way plane and those of their rotation. We discovered that the relative inclination, in the sense rotation axis inclination - orbit axis inclination, is a function of the globular cluster's orbit inclination. Rotation and orbit axes are aligned for…
The recent exquisite Gaia astrometric, photometric, and radial velocity (RV) measurements resulted in a substantial advancement for the determination of the orbits for old star clusters, including the oldest Milky Way globular clusters (MW GCs). The main goal of this paper is to use the Gaia DR3 and the VVVX measurements to obtain the orbits for nearly a dozen new Galactic GC candidates that have been poorly studied or previously unexplored. We use the Gaia DR3 and VVVX databases to identify bonafide members of the Galactic GC candidates: VVV-CL160, Patchick122, Patchick125, Patchick126, Kronb…
Milky Way Subsystems from Globular Clusters Kinematics Using Gaia DR2 and HST Data
我们采用Vasiliev（2019）的151个银河系球状星团的Gaia DR 2自行，结合距离和视线速度来推导它们的运动学性质。为了将星系团分配给银河系厚盘，凸起和晕，我们遵循Posti等人（2018）的方法，他们使用恒星的轨道区分不同的银河系恒星成分。特别是，我们使用的比率$L_{z}/e$，的$Z$投影的角动量的偏心率，人口示踪剂，我们补充从文献和蒙特卡罗模拟中提取的化学丰度。我们发现20个球状星团属于银河系的棒/凸起，35个表现出盘的性质，96个是晕的成员。此外，我们还发现晕状球状星团的自转速度接近于零，平均值为$<Θ>$ =1 $\pm$ 4 km s $^{-1}$ .另一方面，样品的集群，属于厚盘具有显着的旋转与平均旋转速度179 $\pm$ 6公里s $^{-1}$。20个球状星团在银河系的棒/球区域内运行，平均自转速度为49 $\pm$ 11 km s $^{-1}$。
We present orbits and their properties for 152 globular clusters of the Milky Way galaxy obtained using average Gaia DR2 proper motions and other astrometric data from the list of Vasiliev (2019). For orbit integrating we have used the axisymmetric model of the Galactic potential based on the Navarro-Frenk-White dark halo, and modified by Bajkova and Bobylev (2016) using circular velocities of Galactic objects in wide region of Galactocentric distances (up to 200 kpc) from Bhattacharjee et.al. (2014) catalog. Based on the analysis of the obtained orbits, we have modified the composition of the…
Globular clusters can form inside their host galaxies at high redshift when gas densities were higher and gas-rich mergers were common. They can also form inside lower-mass galaxies that have since been accreted and tidally disrupted, leaving their globular cluster complement bound to higher-mass halos. We argue that the age-metallicity-specific orbital energy relation in a galaxy's globular cluster system can be used to identify its origin. Gas-rich mergers should produce tightly bound systems in which metal-rich clusters are younger than metal-poor clusters. Globular clusters formed in massi…
We searched for trails to understand the different Na abundances measured in first and second generation stars of ancient Milky Way globular clusters. For that purpose, we gathered from the recent literature the aforementioned Na abundances, orbital parameters, structural and internal dynamical properties and ages in an homogeneous scale of 28 globular clusters. We found that the intra-cluster Na enrichment, measured by the difference of Na abundances between first and second generation stars, exhibits a trend as a function of the Na abundances of first generation stars, in the sense that the …
Red dwarf stars, which represent 75% of stars in the Milky Way, can be studied in great detail in the solar neighborhood where the sample is more complete. We intend to better characterize red dwarf candidates selected from the Gaia Catalog of Nearby Stars using optical and near-infrared photometry from the VVVX Survey, DECaPS, Pan-STARRS, and WISE. We performed a cross-matching procedure among the positions of a color-selected sample of M dwarfs in the VVVX Survey and the Gaia EDR3 sub-catalog of nearby stars. We explored their stellar parameters and spectral types using VOSA. Radii were also…
Globular clusters are prone to lose stars while moving around the Milky Way. These stars escape the clusters and are distributed throughout extended envelopes or tidal tails. However, such extra-tidal structures are not observed in all globular clusters, and yet there is no structural or dynamical parameters that can predict their presence or absence. NGC\,6864 is an outer halo globular cluster with reported no observed tidal tails. We used Dark Energy Camera (DECam) photometry reaching $\sim$ 4 mag underneath its main sequence turnoff to confidently detect an extra-tidal envelope, and stellar…
Globular clusters in \textsc{OrbIT}: complete dynamical characterisation of the globular cluster population of the Milky Way through updated orbital reconstruction
Università degli Studi di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INAF（意大利国家天体物理研究所）；Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；Instituto Milenio de Astrofísica MAS（MAS 天体物理研究所）；Université Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸大学）；Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸天文台）
A new catalog of homogenised absorption line indices for Milky Way globular clusters from high-resolution integrated spectroscopy
我们对24个银河系球状星团进行了综合光谱分析。从一个核心半径的光谱观察到每个集群与高波长分辨率~2.0 A的FWHM。结合Puzia et al.（2002）和Schiavon et al.（2005）的两个现有数据集，我们构建了一个包含53个银河系球状星团的Lick光谱指数的大型数据库，这些球状星团具有广泛的金属丰度范围，-2.4 < [Fe/H] < 0.1，以及各种水平分支形态。经验指数到金属丰度的转换关系提供了20舔指数用于推导金属丰度的远程，未解决的恒星系统。
The currently known Galactic globular cluster population extends out to a maximum galactocentric distance of $\sim$ 145 kpc, with the peculiarity that the outermost clusters predominantly have an inward velocity. Orbit averaging finds that this configuration occurs by chance about $6\%$ of the time, suggesting that several globular clusters with positive radial velocities remain undiscovered. We evaluate the expected number of undiscovered clusters at large distances under the assumption that the cluster population has a smooth radial distribution and is in equilibrium within the Milky Way's v…
A catalogue of masses, structural parameters and velocity dispersion profiles of 112 Milky Way globular clusters
通过对银河系112个球状星团的速度色散和面密度分布进行N体模拟，确定了它们的质量、恒星质量函数和结构参数。速度弥散分布是根据我们从档案ESO/VLT和Keck谱中获得的15，000多个高精度径向速度以及文献中发表的约20，000个径向速度的组合计算的。我们的拟合还包括球状星团的恒星质量函数，在我们的样本中有47个星团，使我们能够自洽地考虑质量分离和正在进行的星团溶解的影响。我们证实了Sollima & Baumgardt（2017）最近发现的球状星团的整体质量函数与其弛豫时间之间的强相关性。我们还发现球状星团中心的逃逸速度与Milone et al.（2017）最近为57个球状星团导出的星团中第一代恒星（FG）的比例相关，但FG恒星比例与球状星团的整体质量函数之间没有相关性。这可能表明，球状星团阻止污染恒星的风喷射物的能力是决定第二代恒星的存在和比例的关键参数，而不是它后来的动力学质量损失。
We study the outer regions of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 7089 based on new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) observations. The resulting background cleaned stellar density profile reveals the existence of an extended envelope. We confirm previous results that cluster stars are found out to ~ 1deg from the cluster's centre, which is nearly three times the value of the most robust tidal radii estimations. We also used results from direct N-body simulations in order to compare with the observations. We found a fairly good agreement between the observed and numerically generated stellar density p…
We study the outer regions of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC6809 based on Dark Energy Camera (DECam) observations, which reach nearly 6 mag below the cluster main sequence (MS) turnoff. In order to unveil its fainter outermost structure, we built stellar density maps using cluster MS stars, once the contamination of field stars was removed from the cluster color-magnitude diagram. We found that only the resulting stellar density map for the lightest stars exhibits some excesses of stars at opposite sides from the cluster centre that diminish soon thereafter at ~ 0.32 deg. Studied globular …
We provide new values of the orbital parameters of 152 globular clusters, which are calculated using the new mean proper motions obtained from the Gaia EDR3 catalog data. The orbits were integrated 5 Gyr back in an axisymmetric three-component potential with a spherical bulge, disk component, and spherical dark halo in the Navarro-Frenk-White form, which we refined using the rotation curve of objects with large galactocentric distances up to 200 kpc. The obtained orbital parameters were compared with the orbital parameters of the same globular clusters calculated earlier in the same gravitatio…
Using the data from Gaia (ESA) Data Release 2 we performed the orbital calculations of globular clusters (GCs) of the Milky Way. To explore possible close encounters (or collisions) between the GCs, using our own developed high-order phi-GRAPE code, we integrated backward and forward the orbits of 119 objects with reliable positions and proper motions. In calculations, we adopted a realistic axisymmetric Galactic potential (bulge + disk + halo). Using different impact conditions, we found four pairs of the six GCs that may have experienced an encounter within twice the sum of the half-mass rad…
Intrinsic iron abundance spreads in globular clusters, although usually small, are very common, and are signatures of self enrichment: some stars within the cluster have been enriched by supernova ejecta from other stars within the same cluster. We use the Bailin (2018) self enrichment model to predict the relationship between properties of the protocluster -- its mass and the metallicity of the protocluster gas cloud -- and the final observable properties today -- its current metallicity and the internal iron abundance spread. We apply this model to an updated catalog of Milky Way globular cl…
We use deep imaging from the Dark Energy Camera to explore the peripheral regions of nine globular clusters in the outer halo of the Milky Way. Apart from Whiting 1 and NGC 7492, which are projected against the Sagittarius stream, we see no evidence for adjacent stellar populations to indicate any of these clusters is associated with coherent tidal debris from a destroyed host dwarf. We also find no evidence for tidal tails around any of the clusters in our sample; however, both NGC 1904 and 6981 appear to possess outer envelopes. Motivated by a slew of recent Gaia-based discoveries, we compil…
Using action-based distribution function for the dynamical model of the Milky Way we have estimated its total mass and its density profile. Constraints are coming from the globular cluster proper motions from Gaia EDR3, from the rotation curve based on Gaia DR2 data, and from the vertical force data. We use Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method to explore the parameters, for which the globular cluster distribution function and the Galactic potential are fully constrained. Numerical simulations are used to study the uncertainties on the potential constraint if considering a possible massive …
