Multiband photometry of globular clusters toward the central region of the Fornax cluster: Radial variation of GC color distributions

  • Kim, Hak-Sub (Dept. of Astronomy & Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University) ;
  • Yoon, Suk-Jin (Dept. of Astronomy & Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University) ;
  • Sohn, Sangmo Tony (Space Telescope Science Institute) ;
  • Chung, Chul (Dept. of Astronomy & Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University) ;
  • Lee, Sangyoon (Dept. of Astronomy & Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University)
  • Published : 2012.10.17

Abstract

We present wide-field multiband photometry of globular cluster (GC) systems toward the central region of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, including NGC 1399, NGC 1404, and NGC 1387. Observation was carried out through four optical passbands (U, B, V, and I) with the Mosaic II CCD imager mounted on the 4-m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). This marks one of the widest U-band photometric studies on GC systems. GC candidates are selected among point sources based on their two color diagrams together with a magnitude cut. We investigate the radial variation of color distributions for the GC systems, focusing on the fundamental parameters that characterize bimodal distributions; the number ratio between blue and red GCs, the mean colors of the groups, and their color dispersions. We discuss the implication of our result regarding the origin of GC color bimodality.

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