2MASS Studies of Differential Reddening Across Three Massive Globular Clusters

Abstract

J, H, and K_S band data from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) are used to study the effects of differential reddening across the three massive Galactic globular clusters Omega Centauri, NGC 6388, and NGC 6441. Evidence is found that variable extinction may produce false detections of tidal tails around Omega Centauri. We also investigate what appears to be relatively strong differential reddening towards NGC 6388 and NGC 6441, and find that differential extinction may be exaggerating the need for a metallicity spread to explain the width of the red giant branches for these two clusters. Finally, we consider the implications of these results for the connection between unusual, multipopulation globular clusters and the cores of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph).

40 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in Oct. 2003 AJ

References in corpus (11)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
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• Multiple Stellar Populations in the Globular Cluster omega Centauri as Tracers of a Merger Event
• Globular Clusters with Tidal Tails: Deep Two-Color Star Counts
• The Second-Parameter Effect in Metal-Rich Globular Clusters
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• Variable Stars in the Unusual, Metal-Rich Globular Cluster NGC 6441
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Cited by in corpus (24)

• The extended tails of Palomar 5: A ten degree arc of globular cluster tidal debris
• Measurement of the Radius of Neutron Stars with High S/N Quiescent Low-mass X-ray Binaries in Globular Clusters
• Globular Clusters with Dark Matter Halos. II. Evolution in Tidal Field
• Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars: Substructure in the Local Halo as Seen in the Grid Giant Star Survey Including Extended Tidal Debris from Omega Centauri
• Discovery of tidal tails around the distant globular cluster Palomar 14
• Spectroscopic Survey of the Galaxy with Gaia II. The expected science yield from the Radial Velocity Spectrometer
• The non-peculiar velocity dispersion profile of the stellar system omega Centauri
• The eye of Gaia on globular clusters structure: tidal tails
• Reddening distribution across the center of the globular cluster Omega Centauri
• On the Origin of Bimodal Horizontal-Branches in Massive Globular Clusters: The Case of NGC 6388 and NGC 6441
• A Spectroscopic Survey for Omega Centauri Members at and beyond the Cluster Tidal Radius
• Searching for tidal tails around $\omega$ Centauri using RR Lyrae Stars
• RAVE stars tidally stripped/ejected from $\omega$ Centauri globular cluster
• Mapping differential reddening in the inner Galactic globular cluster system
• The Mass Function of omega Centauri down to 0.15 M_s
• The dynamics of the outer parts of omega Centauri
• The not so simple stellar system Omega Cen. II. Evidence in support of a merging scenario
• STREGA: STRucture and Evolution of the GAlaxy. I. Survey Overview and First Results
• Detecting Globular Cluster Tidal Extensions with Bayesian Inference: I. Analysis of $\omega$ Centauri with Gaia EDR3
• On the anomalous red giant branch of the globular cluster Omega Cen
• Near-infrared observations of RR Lyrae and Type II Cepheid variables in the metal-rich bulge globular cluster NGC 6441
• Radial velocities of RR Lyrae stars in and around NGC 6441
• Measuring the Slope of the Dust Extinction Law and the Power Spectrum of Dust Clouds Using Differentially-Reddened Globular Clusters
• The Nephele ecosystem: stars, globular clusters, and stellar streams associated with the progenitor galaxy of $\omega$ Centauri