Palomar 13's Last Stand
M. H. Siegel, S.R. Majewski, K.M. Cudworth, M. Takamiya

TL;DR
This study measures Palomar 13's proper motion and analyzes its orbit, revealing it as a young, eccentric, retrograde globular cluster near destruction, with implications for its stellar population and dynamical state.
Contribution
It provides the first precise proper motion and orbit of Palomar 13, confirming its status as a young halo cluster and evidence of ongoing tidal disruption.
Findings
Palomar 13 has a high space velocity of 315 km/s.
The cluster's orbit is highly eccentric and retrograde.
Evidence suggests Palomar 13 is in the final stages of destruction.
Abstract
We present a proper motion and CCD photometric study of stars in the distant halo globular cluster Palomar 13. The absolute proper motion of Pal 13 with respect to the background galaxies, derived from moderate scale photographic plates separated by a 40-year baseline, is milliarc-seconds per year. The resultant total space velocity (315 km s) implies that Pal 13 is in the inner part of its orbit near perigalacticon. Orbital integration reveals the cluster to possess an inclined, very eccentric, retrograde orbit. These data confirm that Pal 13 is a paradigm "young halo" globular cluster. The derived proper motions for cluster stars are used to produce membership probabilities and a cleaned CCD UBV catalogue for Pal 13. With this data set we have made small revisions to Pal 13's distance, metallicity,…
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Taxonomy
TopicsStellar, planetary, and galactic studies · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research · Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
