An Excess of Globular Clusters in UDGs Formed Through Tidal Heating

TL;DR

This study models globular cluster formation in Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies formed via tidal heating, predicting higher GC mass fractions in UDGs consistent with observations and highlighting the effects of environmental history and disruption.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based model linking UDG formation through tidal heating to elevated globular cluster abundances, aligning with observed trends.

Findings

Massive UDGs have twice the GC mass of similar non-UDGs.

GC mass fraction correlates with cluster-centric distance and galaxy size.

UDGs have lower dynamical masses at a given GC mass.

Abstract

To investigate the origin of elevated globular cluster abundances observed around Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs), we simulate globular cluster populations hosted by UDGs formed through tidal heating. Specifically, globular cluster (GC) formation is modeled as occurring in regions of dense star formation. Because star-formation-rate-densities are higher at high redshift, dwarf galaxies in massive galaxy clusters, which formed most of their stars at high redshift, form a large fraction of their stars in globular clusters. Given that UDGs formed through environmental processes are more likely to be accreted at high redshift, these systems have more GCs than non-UDGs. In particular, our model predicts that massive UDGs have twice the GC mass of non-UDGs of similar stellar mass, in rough agreement with observations. Although this effect is somewhat diminished by GC disruption, we find that the relationship between GC mass fraction and cluster-centric distance, and the relationship between GC mass fraction and galaxy half-light radius are remarkably similar to observations. Among our model objects, both UDGs and non-UDGs present a correlation between halo mass and GC mass, although UDGs have lower dynamical masses at a given GC mass. Furthermore, because of the effectiveness of GC disruption, we predict that GCs around UDGs should have a more top heavy mass function than GCs around non-UDGs. This analysis suggests that dwarfs with older stellar populations, such as UDGs, should have higher globular cluster mass fractions than objects with young stellar populations, such as isolated dwarfs.