A test of Ca ii H & K photometry for isolating massive globular clusters below the metallicity floor

TL;DR

This study evaluates the effectiveness of Ca II H & K photometry in identifying massive, extremely metal-poor globular clusters like EXT8, demonstrating its potential for candidate selection with minimal influence from horizontal branch morphology.

Contribution

It introduces and tests CaHK photometry as a reliable method for selecting metal-poor GCs below the metallicity floor, improving candidate identification accuracy.

Findings

CaHK colours can distinguish GCs below the metallicity floor.

CaHK photometry reduces false positives in candidate selection.

Horizontal branch morphology has limited impact on CaHK colours.

Abstract

The serendipitous discovery of the M31 globular cluster (GC) EXT8 has presented a significant challenge to current theories for GC formation. By finding other GCs similar to EXT8, it should become clear if and/or how EXT8 can fit into our current understanding of GC formation. We aim to test the potential of integrated-light narrow-band Ca II H & K photometry as a proxy for the metallicity of GCs to be able to provide effective candidate selection for massive GCs below the GC metallicity floor ([Fe/H] $\leq$ -2.5), such as EXT8. We investigate the behaviour of two colours involving the CaHK filter employed by the Pristine survey, CaHK-u and CaHK-g, as a function of metallicity through CFHT MegaCam imaging of EXT8 and a wide set of M31 GCs covering the metallicity range of -2.9 $\leq$ [Fe/H] $\leq$ +0.4. Additionally, we investigate if the CaHK colours are strongly influenced by horizontal branch morphology through available morphology measurements. In both of the CaHK colours, EXT8 and two other potential GCs below the metallicity floor can be selected from other metal-poor GCs ([Fe/H] $\leq$ -1.5) with CaHK-g showing the larger metallicity sensitivity. The RMS of linear fits to the metal-poor GCs show an uncertainty of 0.3 dex on metallicity estimations for both colours. Comparisons with u-g and g-z/F450W-F850L colours reinforce the notion that CaHK photometry can be used for effective candidate selection as they reduce false positive selection rates by at least a factor of 2. We find no strong influence of the horizontal branch morphology on the CaHK colours that would interfere with candidate selection, although the assessment is limited by quantity and quality of available data.