# Extensive Globular Cluster Systems Associated with Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster

## TL;DR

This study uses Hubble Space Telescope imaging to reveal that ultra diffuse galaxies in the Coma cluster host an unexpectedly large number of globular clusters, indicating they may have massive dark matter halos despite their low luminosity.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that Coma cluster UDGs have significantly more globular clusters than typical galaxies of similar luminosity, suggesting higher dark matter halo masses and challenging previous assumptions.

## Key findings

- UDGs in Coma have ~7 times more globular clusters than similar luminosity galaxies.
- Median halo mass of these UDGs is estimated at ~1.5×10^11 solar masses.
- Largest UDGs may have halo masses up to ~5×10^11 solar masses.

## Abstract

We present Hubble Space Telescope imaging of two ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs) with measured stellar velocity dispersions in the Coma cluster. The galaxies, Dragonfly 44 and DFX1, have effective radii of 4.7 kpc and 3.5 kpc and velocity dispersions of $47^{+8}_{-6}$ km/s and $30^{+7}_{-7}$ km/s, respectively. Both galaxies are associated with a striking number of compact objects, tentatively identified as globular clusters: $N_{\rm gc}=74\pm 18$ for Dragonfly 44 and $N_{\rm gc}=62\pm 17$ for DFX1. The number of globular clusters is far higher than expected from the luminosities of the galaxies but is consistent with expectations from the empirical relation between dynamical mass and globular cluster count defined by other galaxies. Combining our data for these two objects with previous HST observations of Coma UDGs we find that UDGs have a factor of $6.9^{+1.0}_{-2.4}$ more globular clusters than other galaxies of the same luminosity, in contrast to a recent study of a similar sample by Amorisco et al. (2017), but consistent with earlier results for individual galaxies. The Harris et al. (2017) relation between globular cluster count and dark matter halo mass implies a median halo mass of $M_{\rm halo}\sim 1.5\times 10^{11}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ for the sixteen Coma UDGs that have been observed with HST so far, with the largest and brightest having $M_{\rm halo}\sim 5\times 10^{11}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$.