Deep MOS Spectroscopy of NGC 1316 Globular Clusters

TL;DR

This study uses deep spectroscopy of globular clusters in NGC 1316 to determine their ages, metallicities, and element abundances, shedding light on the galaxy's merger history.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectroscopic analysis of GCs in NGC 1316, revealing their properties and contributing to understanding galaxy formation and evolution.

Findings

Globular clusters show a range of ages indicating multiple formation epochs.

Metallicity distribution suggests complex chemical enrichment history.

Alpha-element abundances provide clues about star formation timescales.

Abstract

The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 is the brightest galaxy in the Fornax cluster, and displays a number of morphological features that might be interpreted as an intermediate age merger remanent ($\sim$3 Gyr). Based on the idea that globular clusters systems (GCS) constitute genuine tracers of the formation and evolution of their host galaxies, we conducted a spectroscopic study of approximately 40 globular clusters (GCs) candidates associated with this interesting galaxy. We determined ages, metallicities, and $\alpha$-element abundances for each GC present in the sample, through the measurement of different Lick indices and their subsequent comparison with simple stellar populations models (SSPs).