Globular Clusters in High-Redshift Dwarf Galaxies: A Case Study from the Local Group

Abstract

We present the reconstructed evolution of rest-frame ultra-violet (UV) luminosities of the most massive Milky Way dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxy, Fornax, and its five globular clusters (GCs) across redshift, based on analysis of the stellar fossil record and stellar population synthesis modeling. We find that (1) Fornax's (proto-)GCs can generate $10-100$ times more UV flux than the field population, despite comprising $<\sim 5\%$ of the stellar mass at the relevant redshifts; (2) due to their respective surface brightnesses, it is more likely that faint, compact sources in the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFFs) are GCs hosted by faint galaxies, than faint galaxies themselves. This may significantly complicate the construction of a galaxy UV luminosity function at $z>3$. (3) GC formation can introduce order-of-magnitude errors in abundance matching. We also find that some compact HFF objects are consistent with the reconstructed properties of Fornax's GCs at the same redshifts (e.g., surface brightness, star formation rate), suggesting we may already have detected proto-GCs in the early Universe. Finally, we discuss the prospects for improving the connections between local GCs and proto-GCs detected in the early Universe.

13 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (37)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Theory of Star Formation
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• The Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database
• UV Luminosity Functions at redshifts z~4 to z~10: 10000 Galaxies from HST Legacy Fields
• Cosmic Reionization and Early Star-Forming Galaxies: A Joint Analysis of New Constraints from Planck and Hubble Space Telescope
• Multiple Stellar Populations in Globular Clusters
• Gaia Data Release 1: Astrometry - one billion positions, two million proper motions and parallaxes
• Ultraviolet Emission Lines in Young Low Mass Galaxies at z~2: Physical Properties and Implications for Studies at z>7
• Paving the way for the JWST: witnessing globular cluster formation at z>3
• Size--luminosity relations and UV luminosity functions at $z=6-9$ simultaneously derived from the complete Hubble Frontier Fields data
• Breathing in Low Mass Galaxies: A Study of Episodic Star Formation
• Galaxy UV-luminosity function and reionization constraints on axion dark matter
• Galactic Dark Matter Halos and Globular Cluster Populations. III: Extension to Extreme Environments
• Dark Matter Halos in Galaxies and Globular Cluster Populations
• Frontier Fields: High-Redshift Predictions and Early Results
• Modeling the Formation of Globular Cluster Systems in the Virgo Cluster
• Photoionization Models for the Semi-Forbidden C III] 1909 Emission in Star-Forming Galaxies
• The sizes of $z\sim 6-8$ lensed galaxies from the Hubble Frontier Fields Abell 2744 data
• Simulating galaxies in the reionization era with FIRE-2: morphologies and sizes
• The Fate of the First Galaxies. III. Properties of Primordial Dwarf Galaxies and their Impact on the Intergalactic Medium
• The origin of globular cluster systems from cosmological simulations
• Benchmark stars for Gaia: fundamental properties of the Population II star HD140283 from interferometric, spectroscopic and photometric data
• The Little Engines That Could? Globular Clusters Contribute Significantly to Reionization-era Star Formation
• Fundamental physics with the Hubble Frontier Fields: constraining Dark Matter models with the abundance of extremely faint and distant galaxies
• The Very Faint End of the UV Luminosity Function over Cosmic Time: Constraints from the Local Group Fossil Record
• Near-Field Limits on the Role of Faint Galaxies in Cosmic Reionization
• Globular clusters with Gaia
• Very low-luminosity galaxies in the early universe have observed sizes similar to single star cluster complexes
• Variable stars and stellar populations in Andromeda XXV: III. A central cluster or the galaxy nucleus?
• The Minimum Halo Mass for Star Formation at z = 6 - 8
• Testing Metal Poor Stellar Models and Isochrones with HST Parallaxes of Metal Poor Stars
• DDO216-A1: a central globular cluster in a low-luminosity transition type galaxy
• The Effect of Metallicity-Dependent T-tau Relations on Calibrated Stellar Models
• Little Blue Dots in the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields: Precursors to Globular Clusters?
• Globular clusters as tracers of the host galaxy mass distribution: the Fornax dSph test case
• Stochastic Star Formation & Feedback: Mapping Low-Mass Galaxies to Dark Matter Haloes

Cited by in corpus (19)

• What does the first highly-redshifted 21-cm detection tell us about early galaxies?
• The formation and hierarchical assembly of globular cluster populations
• Star clusters near and far; tracing star formation across cosmic time
• Massive Star cluster formation under the microscope at z=6
• Self-consistent proto-globular cluster formation in cosmological simulations of high-redshift galaxies
• Preparing the next gravitational million-body simulations: Evolution of single and binary stars in Nbody6++GPU, MOCCA and McLuster
• Nitrogen enrichment and clustered star formation at the dawn of the Galaxy
• Origins of scaling relations of globular cluster systems
• The Little Engines That Could? Globular Clusters Contribute Significantly to Reionization-era Star Formation
• JWST/NIRCam Observations of Stars and HII Regions in $z\simeq 6-8$ Galaxies: Properties of Star Forming Complexes on 150 pc Scales
• The minimum metallicity of globular clusters and its physical origin -- implications for the galaxy mass-metallicity relation and observations of proto-globular clusters at high redshift
• Search Instructions for Globular Clusters in Formation at High Redshifts
• Testing the Relationship Between Bursty Star Formation and Size Fluctuations of Local Dwarf Galaxies
• The evolution of the UV luminosity function of globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations
• On the initial mass-radius relation of stellar clusters
• Formation of proto-globular cluster candidates in cosmological simulations of dwarf galaxies at $z>4$
• Black hole mass function shift in proto-stellar-clusters driven by gas accretion
• Low-luminosity galaxies in the early universe have observed sizes similar to star cluster complexes
• The Predicted Properties of Helium-Enriched Globular Cluster Progenitors at High Redshift