The merger history of NGC 1316

FORTE, JUAN C.; SMITH CASTELLI, ANALÍA V.; SESTO, LEANDRO A.; FAIFER, FAVIO R.

La Serena

Congreso; Galaxy Groups and Clusters II: Laboratories to study galaxy evolution; 2017

Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of La Serena

The Fornax Cluster, located at a distance of ∼20 Mpc, provides an interesting field for the study of galaxy populations, large scale structures, dynamics and evolution in different environments. It is important to emphasize that this cluster presents dynamic evidences of being constituted by two components. The main component centered on NGC 1399 and a small subgroup focused on NGC 1316, which could be falling towards the main component.Motivated by the fact that globular clusters (GCs) have an important rolein several aspects related to the study of stellar evolution and the chemical enrichment that occurred during the main events in the history of galaxy assembly, we present a spectroscopic study focussed in the GC system associated to NGC 1316, an intermediate-age merger remnant.Using the multi-object mode of the GMOS-S camera, we obtained spectra with an excellent signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) for thirty-five genuine GCs.We have been able to confirm the existence of multiple GC populations as-sociated with NGC 1316, where the presence of a dominant subpopulationof very young GCs with high relative metallicities stands out. We obtained that NGC 1316 is still in an assembly stage. This result is in agreement with the scenario presented in the literature, which indicates that the subgroup dominated by this galaxy is in a less evolved phase than the core of the cluster.