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M31’s Disk System of Globular Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

Heather Morrison ,
Paul Harding ,
Denise Hurley-Keller  and
Kathy Perrett
Heather Morrison
Affiliation:
Dept of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH 44106
Paul Harding
Affiliation:
Dept of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH 44106
Denise Hurley-Keller
Affiliation:
Dept of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH 44106
Kathy Perrett
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3H8

Abstract

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Globular cluster systems are often thought to be associated with violent formation events such as galaxy mergers or the formation of large bulges. However, formation in relatively ordered regions such as thin disks may also be an important process which has been overlooked.

Recent high-quality spectroscopic studies of the M31 globulars show that a significant number of the clusters projected on its disk belong to a rapidly rotating thin disk. This contrasts strongly with the Milky Way system, which is composed of a halo and thick disk system and has no known thin disk globulars. It is also likely that M31 has experienced no minor mergers since the globular cluster formation epoch, as such a merger would have heated the globulars into a thick disk system. The metallicity distributions of the disk and non-disk clusters are quite similar.

Type
I. Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 13 , 2005 , pp. 165 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Pacific 2005

References

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Hurley-Keller, D., Morrison, H.L., Harding, P. and Jacoby, G. 2004, ApJ, 616, 804 Google Scholar