Tidal Tails around the Outer Halo Globular Clusters Eridanus and Palomar 15
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Publication Date
2017-05-10Journal Title
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
ISSN
2041-8205
Publisher
IOP Science
Volume
840
Issue
2
Pages
L25-L25
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
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Myeong, G., Jerjen, H., Mackey, D., & Da Costa, G. (2017). Tidal Tails around the Outer Halo Globular Clusters Eridanus and Palomar 15. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 840 (2), L25-L25. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa6fb4
Abstract
We report the discovery of tidal tails around the two outer halo globular clusters, Eridanus and Palomar 15, based on gi-band images obtained with DECam at the CTIO 4 m Blanco Telescope. The tidal tails are among the most remote stellar streams currently known in the Milky Way halo. Cluster members have been determined from the color–magnitude diagrams and used to establish the radial density profiles, which show, in both cases, a strong departure in the outer regions from the best-fit King profile. Spatial density maps reveal tidal tails stretching out on opposite sides of both clusters, extending over a length of ~760 pc for Eridanus and ~1160 pc for Palomar 15. The great circle projected from the Palomar 15 tidal tails encompasses the Galactic Center, while that for Eridanus passes close to four dwarf satellite galaxies, one of which (Sculptor) is at a comparable distance to that of Eridanus.
Keywords
globular clusters: general, globular clusters: individual (Eridanus, Palomar 15)
Sponsorship
The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council through Discovery projects DP150100862 and DP150103294. G.C.M. thanks Boustany Foundation, Cambridge Trust, and Issac Newton Studentship for their support on his work. This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was constructed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the DOE and NSF (USA), MISE (Spain), STFC (UK), HEFCE (UK). NCSA (UIUC), KICP (U. Chicago), CCAPP (Ohio State), MIFPA (Texas A&M), CNPQ, FAPERJ, FINEP (Brazil), MINECO (Spain), DFG (Germany), and the collaborating institutions in the Dark Energy Survey, which are Argonne Lab, UC Santa Cruz, University of Cambridge, CIEMAT-Madrid, University of Chicago, University College London, DES-Brazil Consortium, University of Edinburgh, ETH Zürich, Fermilab, University of Illinois, ICE (IEEC-CSIC), IFAE Barcelona, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, LMU München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, University of Michigan, NOAO, University of Nottingham, Ohio State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Lab, Stanford University, University of Sussex, and Texas A&M University.
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa6fb4
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266515
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