NONLINEAR COLOR-METALLICITY RELATIONS OF GLOBULAR CLUSTERS. V. NONLINEAR ABSORPTION-LINE INDEX VERSUS METALLICITY RELATIONS AND BIMODAL INDEX DISTRIBUTIONS OF M31 GLOBULAR CLUSTERS
- Department of Astronomy and Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749 (Korea, Republic of)
- Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Gemini Observatory, 670 North A'ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Chungnam University, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)
Recent spectroscopy on the globular cluster (GC) system of M31 with unprecedented precision witnessed a clear bimodality in absorption-line index distributions of old GCs. Such division of extragalactic GCs, so far asserted mainly by photometric color bimodality, has been viewed as the presence of merely two distinct metallicity subgroups within individual galaxies and forms a critical backbone of various galaxy formation theories. Given that spectroscopy is a more detailed probe into stellar population than photometry, the discovery of index bimodality may point to the very existence of dual GC populations. However, here we show that the observed spectroscopic dichotomy of M31 GCs emerges due to the nonlinear nature of metallicity-to-index conversion and thus one does not necessarily have to invoke two separate GC subsystems. We take this as a close analogy to the recent view that metallicity-color nonlinearity is primarily responsible for observed GC color bimodality. We also demonstrate that the metallicity-sensitive magnesium line displays non-negligible metallicity-index nonlinearity and Balmer lines show rather strong nonlinearity. This gives rise to bimodal index distributions, which are routinely interpreted as bimodal metallicity distributions, not considering metallicity-index nonlinearity. Our findings give a new insight into the constitution of M31's GC system, which could change much of the current thought on the formation of GC systems and their host galaxies.
- OSTI ID:
- 22126725
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 768, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
NONLINEAR COLOR-METALLICITY RELATIONS OF GLOBULAR CLUSTERS. IV. TESTING THE NONLINEARITY SCENARIO FOR COLOR BIMODALITY VIA HST/WFC3 u-BAND PHOTOMETRY OF M84 (NGC 4374)
THE SLUGGS SURVEY: NGC 3115, A CRITICAL TEST CASE FOR METALLICITY BIMODALITY IN GLOBULAR CLUSTER SYSTEMS