The Mass-Metallicity Relation of Globular Clusters in the Context of Nonlinear Color-Metallicty Relations

TL;DR

This paper uses simulations to explore how nonlinear color-metallicity relations and a mass-metallicity relation can produce bimodal color distributions in globular clusters, even if their metallicity distribution is unimodal.

Contribution

It demonstrates that observed bimodal color distributions and the blue tilt can arise from nonlinear relations and a mass-metallicity relation without requiring bimodal metallicity distributions.

Findings

Simulated populations can show bimodal colors with a unimodal metallicity distribution.

The blue tilt is more prominent in models with higher mean metallicities.

Narrower GCLFs reduce the significance of color-magnitude slopes.

Abstract

Two recent empirical developments in the study of extragalactic globular cluster (GC) populations are the color-magnitude relation of the blue GCs (the "blue tilt") and the nonlinearity of the dependence of optical GC colors on metallicity. The color-magnitude relation, interpreted as a mass-metallicity relation, is thought to be a consequence of self-enrichment. Nonlinear color-metallicity relations have been shown to produce bimodal color distributions from unimodal metallicity distributions. We simulate GC populations including both a mass-metallicity scaling relation and nonlinear color-metallicity relations motivated by theory and observations. Depending on the assumed range of metallicities and the width of the GC luminosity function (GCLF), we find that the simulated populations can have bimodal color distributions with a "blue tilt" similar to observations, even though the metallicity distribution appears unimodal. The models that produce these features have the relatively high mean GC metallicities and nearly equal blue and red peaks characteristic of giant elliptical galaxies. The blue tilt is less apparent in the models with metallicities typical of dwarf ellipticals; the narrower GCLF in these galaxies has an even bigger effect in reducing the significance of their color-magnitude slopes. We critically examine the evidence for nonlinearity versus bimodal metallicities as explanations for the characteristic double-peaked color histograms of giant ellipticals and conclude that the question remains open. We discuss the prospects for further theoretical and observational progress in constraining the models presented here and for uncovering the true metallicity distributions of extragalactic globular cluster systems.