Accreted versus In Situ Milky Way Globular Clusters

TL;DR

This study analyzes the ages and metallicities of Milky Way globular clusters to estimate the proportion formed in situ versus accreted from dwarf galaxies, revealing distinct formation histories and accretion signatures.

Contribution

It provides a detailed chemical and orbital analysis of Milky Way GCs, estimating that about a quarter were accreted from dwarf galaxies, and identifies signatures of accretion in their properties.

Findings

Approximately 25% of GCs are accreted from dwarf galaxies.

Young track GCs often have retrograde orbits, indicating accretion.

Several GCs align with satellite galaxy streams, supporting accretion origins.

Abstract

Here we examine the Milky Way's GC system to estimate the fraction of accreted versus in situ formed GCs. We first assemble a high quality database of ages and metallicities for 93 Milky Way GCs from literature deep colour-magnitude data. The age-metallicity relation for the Milky Way's GCs reveals two distinct tracks -- one with near constant old age of ~12.8 Gyr and the other branches to younger ages. We find that the latter young track is dominated by globular clusters associated with the Sagittarius and Canis Major dwarf galaxies. Despite being overly simplistic, its age-metallicity relation can be well represented by a simple closed box model with continuous star formation. The inferred chemical enrichment history is similar to that of the Large Magellanic Cloud, but is more enriched, at a given age, compared to the Small Magellanic Cloud. After excluding Sagittarius and Canis Major GCs, several young track GCs remain. Their horizontal branch morphologies are often red and hence classified as Young Halo objects, however they do not tend to reveal extended horizontal branches (a possible signature of an accreted remnant nucleus). Retrograde orbit GCs (a key signature of accretion) are commonly found in the young track. We also examine GCs that lie close to the Fornax-Leo-Sculptor great circle defined by several satellite galaxies. We find that several GCs are consistent with the young track and we speculate that they may have been accreted along with their host dwarf galaxy, whose nucleus may survive as a GC. Finally, we suggest that 27-47 GCs (about 1/4 of the entire system), from 6-8 dwarf galaxies, were accreted to build the Milky Way GC system we seen today.