Rediscovering the Tidal Tails of NGC 288 with Gaia DR2

Abstract

NGC 288 is a Galactic globular cluster having observed extra tidal structure, without confirmed tidal tails. $Gaia$ DR2 provides photometric and astrometric data for many of the stars in NGC 288 and its extra tidal structure. To compare with $Gaia$ data, we simulate an $N$-body model of a star cluster with the same orbit as NGC 288 in a Milky Way potential. The simulation shows that the cluster forms tidal tails that are compressed along the cluster's orbit when it is at apocentre and are expected to be a diffuse bipolar structure. In this letter, we present a comparison between the simulation and observations from $Gaia$ DR2. We find that both the simulation and the observations share comparable trends in the position on the sky and proper motions of the extra-tidal stars, supporting the presence of tidal tails around NGC 288.

arXiv comment5 pages, 5 figures

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• Variation in the Stellar Mass Function Along Stellar Streams
• The Multiple Extended Tidal Tails of NGC 288
• DELVE-ing into the Milky Way's Globular Clusters: Assessing extra-tidal features in NGC 5897, NGC 7492, and testing detectability with deeper photometry
• Using Binaries in Globular Clusters to Catch Sight of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
• A search for stellar structures around nine outer halo globular clusters in the Milky Way