Stellar cluster formation in a Milky Way-sized galaxy at z>4 -- I. The proto-globular cluster population and the imposter amongst us

Abstract

The formation history of globular clusters (GCs) at redshift $z>4$ remains an unsolved problem. In this work, we use the cosmological, $N$-body hydrodynamical ``zoom-in'' simulation GigaEris to study the properties and formation of proto-GC candidates in the region surrounding the progenitor of a Milky Way-sized galaxy. The simulation employs a modern implementation of smoothed-particle hydrodynamics, including metal-line cooling and metal and thermal diffusion and allows to resolve systems at the scale of star clusters. We define proto-GC candidate systems as gravitationally bound stellar systems with baryonic mass fraction $F_{\mathrm{b}}\ge 0.75$ and stellar velocity dispersion ${\sigma }_{\star }<20$ km s${}^{-1}$. At $z=4.4$ we identify 9 systems which satisfy our criteria, all of which form between 10 kpc to 30 kpc from the centre of the main host. Their baryonic masses are in the range $10^5$- $10^7$ M${}_{\odot }$. By the end of the simulation, they still have a relatively low stellar mass ($M_{\star }\sim 10^4$--$10^5$ M${}_{\odot }$) and a metallicity ($-1.8\lesssim [Fe/H]\lesssim -0.8$) similar to the blue Galactic GCs. All of the identified systems except one appear to be associated with gas filaments accreting onto the main galaxy in the circum-galactic region, and formed at $z=5-4$. The exception is the oldest object, which appears to be a stripped compact dwarf galaxy that has interacted with the main halo between $z=5.8$ and $z=5.2$ and has lost its entire dark matter content due to tidal mass loss.

arXiv comment11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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