A Catalog of Extended Clusters and Ultra-Compact Dwarf Galaxies - An Analysis of their Parameters in Early- and Late-Type Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper compiles and analyzes a comprehensive catalog of extended stellar objects, including extended clusters and ultra-compact dwarf galaxies, examining their properties and relationships with host galaxy types and luminosities.

Contribution

It provides the first extensive catalog of EOs, analyzing their parameters and their dependence on host galaxy type and luminosity, and discusses their possible star cluster origin.

Findings

EOs range from MV = -4 to -14 mag.

Most EOs brighter than -10 mag are in elliptical galaxies.

EOs and GCs form a continuous structure in parameter space.

Abstract

Extended stellar clusters with effective radii larger than 10 pc have been found in various environments. Objects with masses comparable to globular clusters (GCs) are called extended clusters (ECs), while objects with masses in the dwarf galaxy regime are called ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs). The paper analyses the observational parameters luminosity, effective radius, and projected distance to the host galaxy, of all known ECs and UCDs and the dependence of these parameters on the type and the luminosity of their host galaxy. We searched the available literature to compile a catalog of star clusters larger than 10 pc. As there is no clear distinction between ECs and UCDs, both types of objects will be called extended stellar objects (EOs). In total, we found 813 EOs of which 171 are associated with late-type and 642 with early-type galaxies. EOs cover a luminosity range from about MV = -4 to -14 mag. However, the vast majority of EOs brighter than -10 mag are associated with elliptical galaxies. At each magnitude EOs are found with effective radii between 10 pc and an upper size limit, which shows a clear trend: the more luminous the object the larger is the upper size limit. For EOs associated with early-and late-type galaxies, the luminosity functions peak at -6.40 and -6.47 mag, respectively, which is about one magnitude fainter than the peak of the GC luminosity function. EOs and GCs form a coherent structure in the reff vs. MV parameter space, while there is a clear gap between EOs and early type dwarf galaxies. However, there is a small potential overlap at the high-mass end, where the most extended EOs are close to the parameters of compact elliptical galaxies. We compare the EO sample with numerical models and conclude that the parameters of the EO sample as a whole can be very well explained by a star cluster origin, where EOs are the results of merged cluster complexes.