Where Are Most of the Globular Clusters in Today's Universe?

Abstract

The total number of globular clusters (GCs) in a galaxy rises continuously with the galaxy luminosity L, while the relative number of galaxies decreases with L following the Schechter function. The product of these two very nonlinear functions gives the relative number of GCs contained by all galaxies at a given L. It is shown that GCs, in this universal sense, are most commonly found in galaxies within a narrow range around $L_{\star }$. In addition, blue (metal-poor) GCs outnumber the red (metal-richer) ones globally by 4 to 1 when all galaxies are added, pointing to the conclusion that the earliest stages of galaxy formation were especially favorable to forming massive, dense star clusters.

In press for Astronomical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
• Black hole mergers from an evolving population of globular clusters
• Galactic Dark Matter Halos and Globular Cluster Populations. III: Extension to Extreme Environments
• On the Progenitor of Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817
• Formation histories of stars, clusters and globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations
• Tidal Disruption Events and Gravitational Waves from Intermediate-mass Black Holes in Evolving Globular Clusters Across Space and Time
• The correlation between the sizes of globular cluster systems and their host dark matter haloes
• Where did the globular clusters of the Milky Way form? Insights from the E-MOSAICS simulations
• The kinematics of globular cluster populations in the E-MOSAICS simulations and their implications for the assembly history of the Milky Way
• The evolution of the UV luminosity function of globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations
• A new method to constrain the origins of dark matter-free galaxies and their unusual globular clusters
• Euclid preparation. LVIII. Detecting globular clusters in the Euclid survey
• Globular Cluster Systems and X-Ray Atmospheres in Galaxies
• Globular cluster population of the HST frontier fields galaxy J07173724+3744224