Tidal stripping stellar substructures around four metal-poor globular clusters in the Galactic bulge

TL;DR

This study reveals that four metal-poor globular clusters in the Galactic bulge exhibit tidal tails and substructures, indicating strong environmental interactions affecting their evolution.

Contribution

It provides detailed observational evidence of tidal stripping features around globular clusters in the Galactic bulge using near-infrared imaging.

Findings

All four clusters show tidal tails or density lobes beyond their tidal radii.

The substructures' orientations suggest interaction with the Galaxy's gravitational field.

Radial density profiles deviate from classical models, indicating extended stellar features.

Abstract

We investigate the spatial density configuration of stars around four metal-poor globular clusters (NGC 6266, NGC 6626, NGC 6642 and NGC 6723) in the Galactic bulge region using wide-field deep J, H, and K imaging data obtained with the WFCAM near-infrared array on United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. Statistical weighted filtering algorithm for the stars on the color-magnitude diagram is applied in order to sort cluster member candidates from the field star contamination. In two-dimensional isodensity contour maps of the clusters, we find that all of the four globular clusters exhibit strong evidence of tidally stripping stellar features beyond tidal radius, in the form of tidal tail or small density lobes or chunk. The orientations of the extended stellar substructures are likely to be associated with the effect of the dynamic interaction with the Galaxy and the cluster space motion. The observed radial density profiles of the four globular clusters also describe the extended substructures; they depart from theoretical King and Wilson models and have an overdensity feature with a break in a slope of profile at the outer region of clusters. The observed results could imply that four globular clusters in the Galactic bulge region have experienced strong environmental effect such as tidal force or bulge or disk shock of the Galaxy in the dynamical evolution of the globular clusters. These observational results provide us further constraints to understand the evolution of clusters in the Galactic bulge region as well as the formation of the Galaxy.