Bibcode
Carballo-Bello, J. A.; Gieles, Mark; Sollima, Antonio; Koposov, Sergey; Martínez-Delgado, David; Peñarrubia, Jorge
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 419, Issue 1, pp. 14-28.
Advertised on:
1
2012
Citations
67
Refereed citations
63
Description
Using deep photometric data from Wide Field Camera at the Isaac Newton
Telescope and Wide Field Imager at the ESO 2.2-m telescope we measure
the outer number density profiles of 19 stellar clusters located in the
inner region of the Milky Way halo (within a Galactocentric distance
range of 10-30 kpc) in order to assess the impact of internal and
external dynamical processes on the spatial distribution of stars.
Adopting power-law fitting templates, with index -γ in the outer
region, we find that the clusters in our sample can be divided in two
groups: a group of massive clusters (≥105
M&sun;) that has relatively flat profiles with 2.5 <
γ < 4, and a group of low-mass clusters (≤105
M&sun;), with steep profiles (γ > 4) and clear
signatures of interaction with the Galactic tidal field. We refer to
these two groups as 'tidally unaffected' and 'tidally affected',
respectively. Our results also show a clear trend between the slope of
the outer parts and the half-mass density of these systems, which
suggests that the outer density profiles may retain key information on
the dominant processes driving the dynamical evolution of globular
clusters.
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Traces of Galaxy Formation: Stellar populations, Dynamics and Morphology
We are a large, diverse, and very active research group aiming to provide a comprehensive picture for the formation of galaxies in the Universe. Rooted in detailed stellar population analysis, we are constantly exploring and developing new tools and ideas to understand how galaxies came to be what we now observe.
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