Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/230517

Title

The baryonic haloes of elliptical galaxies: radial distribution of globular clusters and diffuse hot gas

Author(s)

Forbes, Duncan A.;  Ponman, Trevor;  O'Sullivan, Ewan

Abstract

For a sample of nine well-studied giant ellipticals, we compare the projected radial distribution of their red and blue globular cluster (GC) subpopulations with their host galaxy stellar and X-ray surface brightness profiles. We support previous findings that the surface density distribution of red (metal-rich) GCs follows that of the host galaxy starlight. We find good agreement between the outer slope of the blue GC surface density and that of the galaxy X-ray emission. This coincidence of projected radial profiles is likely due to the fact that both blue GCs and X-ray emitting hot gas share the same gravitational potential in equilibrium. When deprojected the X-ray emitting hot gas has a radial density dependence that is the square root of that for the GC density. We further show that the energy per unit mass for blue GCs is roughly half that of the hot gas.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing

Source

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 425, no. 1 (Sep 2012), pp. 66-73

Publication year

2012

FOR Code(s)

0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences

Keyword(s)

Galaxies;  Galaxy formation;  Globular clusters;  Hot gas;  Star clusters

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

ISSN

0035-8711

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21368.x

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society copyright © 2012 RAS.

Additional information

The authors acknowledge support from the European Community under the Marie Curie Research Training Network, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award Number AR1-12014X issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract NAS8-03060.

Peer reviewed