2026/07/11 by Ashton Cardona, Timothy Carleton, Jessica Berkheimer +9
#astro-ph.GA
We investigate globular cluster (GC) candidates associated with the elliptical galaxy VV191a using JWST NIRCam and archival HST imaging. Beginning with an initial catalog of over 500 candidate sources, we apply morphological filtering, photometric redshift selection, and spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting using BAGPIPES to isolate a refined sample of 61 probable GCs, including a high-confidence subset of 20 objects. The derived age distribution is concentrated between ~ 6-10 Gyr, with a peak near ~ 8 Gyr, while metallicities are predominantly near and super-solar. Unlike many GC systems in elliptical galaxies, the VV191a sample does not exhibit a clear bimodal metallicity distribution. Derived stellar masses span a broad range and suggest significant degeneracies related to dust attenuation and foreground contamination from the overlapping spiral galaxy VV191b. These results support the presence of an evolved GC population in VV191a while highlighting limitations imposed by broadband SED fitting and foreground contamination