THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER SYSTEM OF THE VIRGO GIANT ELLIPTICAL GALAXY NGC 4636. I. SUBARU/FAINT OBJECT CAMERA AND SPECTROGRAPH SPECTROSCOPY AND DATABASE

Journal Article · Wed Jan 20 04:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/709/1/377· OSTI ID:21392335

Park, Hong Soo; Lee, Myung Gyoon; Hwang, Ho Seong ^[1]; Arimoto, Nobuo ^[2]; Tamura, Naoyuki ^[3]; Onodera, Masato ^[4]

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1. Astronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University (Korea, Republic of)
2. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo (Japan)
3. Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hilo (United States)
4. CEA, Laboratoire AIM, Irfu/SAp, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette (France)

We present a spectroscopic study of the globular clusters (GCs) in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4636 in the Virgo Cluster. We selected target GC candidates using the Washington photometry derived from the deep CCD images taken at the KPNO 4 m Telescope. Then we obtained the spectra of 164 target objects in the field of NGC 4636 using the Multi-Object Spectroscopy mode of Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph on the Subaru 8.2 m Telescope. We have measured the velocities for 122 objects: 105 GCs in NGC 4636, the nucleus of NGC 4636, 11 foreground stars, two background galaxies, and three probable intracluster GCs in the Virgo Cluster. The GCs in NGC 4636 are located in the projected galactocentric radius within 10' (corresponding to 43 kpc). The measured velocities for the GCs range from approx300 km s{sup -1} to approx1600 km s{sup -1}, with a mean value of 932{sup +25}{sub -22} km s{sup -1}, which is in good agreement with the velocity for the nucleus of NGC 4636, 928 +- 45 km s{sup -1}. The velocity dispersion of the GCs in NGC 4636 is derived to be 231{sup +15}{sub -17} km s{sup -1}, and the velocity dispersion of the blue GCs is slightly larger than that of the red GCs. Combining our results with data in the literature, we produce a master catalog of radial velocities for 238 GCs in NGC 4636. The velocity dispersion of the GCs in the master catalog is found to be 225{sup +12}{sub -9} km s{sup -1} for the entire sample, 251{sup +18}{sub -12} km s{sup -1} for 108 blue GCs, and 205{sup +11}{sub -13} km s{sup -1} for 130 red GCs.

• OSTI ID: 21392335
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 709; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CAMERAS
CATALOGS
CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICES
DOCUMENT TYPES
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
PHOTOMETRY
RADIAL VELOCITY
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SPECTRA
SPECTROSCOPY
STAR CLUSTERS
STARS
TELESCOPES
VELOCITY