Nature and nurture: the dynamical ages of in situ and accreted globular clusters in the Milky Way

TL;DR

This study analyzes the dynamical ages of 93 Milky Way globular clusters, revealing differences between in situ and accreted clusters and supporting early accretion scenarios.

Contribution

It provides a homogeneous census of dynamical ages for MW globular clusters, integrating chemo-dynamical data from Gaia to distinguish their origins.

Findings

Majority of accreted GCs are dynamically young (61%)

In situ GCs have a lower percentage of dynamical youth (38%)

Excluding low-energy GCs, 70% of ex situ GCs are dynamically young

Abstract

The bifurcated age-metallicity relation of globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way (MW) shows that GCs are either originated in situ or accreted into the Galaxy from former satellites of the MW. The effects of the Galactic tidal field can leave signatures on the dynamical evolution and structural properties of GCs. We present a homogeneous census of dynamical ages for a sample of 93 GCs in the MW, coupled with the knowledge of their common progenitors from the chemo-dynamical parameters from the Gaia mission, unavailable some years ago. We found that the majority of accreted GCs (61%) is dynamically young. This percentage drops to 38% for in situ GCs. Excluding the enigmatic low-energy (LE) GCs, with ambiguous origin, the fraction of dynamically young ex situ GCs raises to 70%. A two tail Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that the distribution of dynamical ages of LE GCs cannot be distinguished from the distribution of in situ bulge and disc GCs. Yet, the LE GCs are firmly located on the satellite branch of the age-metallicity relation. An explanation may be that the progenitor of LE GCs plunged very early into the MW, so that the gravitational field of the MW had time enough to act on the associated GCs. The dynamical ages offer a statistically robust evidence corroborating the scenario of an early accretion proposed by several recent studies on the origin of LE GCs.