Spatial Structures in the Globular Cluster Distribution of Fornax Cluster Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper identifies significant spatial patterns in the globular cluster systems of bright Fornax Cluster galaxies, revealing insights into their formation and accretion histories through detailed analysis of HST data.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed characterization and classification of GC spatial structures in Fornax galaxies, linking them to formation mechanisms and galaxy interactions.

Findings

Discovery of significant GC spatial structures in 10 galaxies

Classification of structures based on morphology and location

Estimation of progenitor masses for some GC structures

Abstract

We report the discovery of statistically significant spatial structures in the projected two-dimensional distributions of the Globular Cluster (GC) systems of 10 among the brightest galaxies in the Fornax Cluster. We use a catalog of GCs extracted from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Fornax Cluster Survey (ACSFCS) imaging data. We characterize the size, shape and location relative to the host galaxies of the GC structures and suggest a classification based on their morphology and location that is suggestive of different formation mechanisms. We also investigate the GC structures in the context of the positions of their host galaxies relative to the general spatial distributions of galaxies and intra-cluster globular clusters in the Fornax Cluster. We finally estimate the dynamical masses of the progenitors of some GC structures, under the assumption that they are the relics of past accretion events of satellite galaxies by their hosts.