Globular clusters at the centre of the Fornax Cluster: tracing interactions between galaxies

BASSINO, L.P., FAIFER, F., FORTE, J.C., DIRSCH, B., RICHTLER, T., GEISLER, D., Y SHUBERTH, Y.

Concepción (Chile)

Conferencia; Globular Clusters - Guides to Galaxies; 2006

FONDAP - ESO Conference

We present the combined results of two papers: a large scale study of the globular cluster system (GCS) around NGC 1399, the central galaxy of the Fornax cluster (Bassino et al. 2006a), and a study of the GCs around NGC 1387, NGC 1379 and NGC 1374, three low-luminosity galaxies located close to the center of the same cluster (Bassino et al. 2006b).In both cases, the data consist of images from the wide-field MOSAIC Imager of the CTIO 4-m telescope, obtained with Washington C and Kron--Cousins R filters. The images cover a field of 36 x 36 arcmin, corresponding to 200 x 200 kpc at the Fornax distance.The colour distributions and the radial and azimuthal projected densities of all the GCSs as well as the luminosity functions of the GCs in the three low mass galaxies are analyzed.We stress on the properties of the GCSs that allow us to trace possible interaction processes between the galaxies (tidal stripping of GCs, for instance), like the azimuthal GC projected density around NGC 1399 and the low specific frequencies and low proportion of blue/red GCs in the three low-luminosity galaxies.References:Bassino, L.P.; Faifer, F.R.; Forte, J.C.; Dirsch, B.; Richtler, T.; Geisler, D. and Schuberth, Y. 2006a, A\&A, submittted.Bassino, L.P.; Richtler, T. y Dirsch, B. 2006b, MNRAS, in press.