2004/09/06 by David Martinez-Delgado, David Martínez‐Delgado, Martinez-Delgado, David +13
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Developments in Astronomy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0409118
9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in "Satellites and Tidal Streams", Prada, Martinez-Delgado & Mahohey eds., PASP
arxiv created 2004/09/06 · openalex publication_date 2004/09/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The surroundings of globular clusters in the outer halo are one of the best places to look for the remnants of ancient dwarf satellites. The classical Searle & Zinn (1978) scenario of the formation of the Milky Way, in which the halo globular clusters formed in larger dwarf galaxies, can nowadays be considered the local manifestation of the hierarchical galaxy formation. It is now well known that some Galactic globular clusters are actually associated with the tidal stellar stream resulting from the accretion of dwarf satellites, thereby confirming that this process plays an important role in the building of the Milky Way globular cluster system. Furthermore, several recent studies have suggested that the two most luminous Galactic globular clusters (M54, associated with Sagittarius and Omega Centauri) might be the nuclei of dwarf galaxies. Extending previous suggestions, van den Bergh (2000) has argued that the ``young'' globulars located in the outer halo might be the nuclei of extinct dwarf galaxies and suggests that a search for evidence of this may prove worthwhile. If these clusters formed within larger stellar systems, we would expect to find them surrounded by a stellar population that should be revealed by deep photometry over a wide field. In this paper, we present the first (most interesting) preliminary results from a long term project designed to search for tidal debris around remote halo globular clusters, debris that may be the vestiges of the larger systems in which these clusters formed.