The main purpose of the visit is to develop the use of extragalactic globular clusters as tracers of the assembly histories of galaxies. This will build on our previous work, based on which certain abundance patterns (e.g. [Eu/Si]) appear to be good indicators of whether GCs have formed in-situ within their current host galaxy of were accreted from smaller galaxies. GCs can thus be employed in a similar manner to that in which such abundance patterns have proven effective at disentangling the origin of individual stars in the Galactic halo, but at much greater distances. Indeed, looking ahead to the ELT era, GCs will continue to serve as important tracers of galactic halos and galaxy assembly.

Techniques for abundance measurements from integrated-light spectroscopy of (old) GCs have now matured to a level where one can reach a level of precision and accuracy comparable to what is possible for individual stars. Motivated by the availability of FLAMES observations of the Calcium Triplet region for GCs around several galaxies in the Local Universe, we will adapt the analysis techniques employed in our previous work to this spectral region, curating and optimising the line lists, and identifying lines suitable for abundance measurements.

Another goal is to push the boundaries of what is possible from integrated-light analysis still further. For example, our previous work has demonstrated that the implementation of NLTE corrections in such analysis is feasible, but not yet straight forward to apply in a routine manner, and only for a limited selection of elements. During this visit we aim, specifically, to develop a more streamlined procedure for application of NLTE corrections, and to develop NLTE corrections for Eu (an important r-process tracer) and quantify the effect on the assessment of the origin of GCs (in-situ vs accreted).