@article{697a4362c777486cb40b1d806f878922,
title = "The globular cluster systems of Abell 1185",
abstract = "We examine the properties of a previously discovered population of globular clusters in the heart of the rich galaxy cluster Abell 1185 that might be intergalactic in nature. Deep images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard Hubble Space Telescope (HST) confirm the presence of ∼1300 globular clusters brighter than IF814W 27.3 mag in a field devoid of any large galaxies. The luminosities and colors of these objects are found to be similar to those of metal-poor globular clusters observed in many galaxies to date. Although a significant fraction of the detected globular clusters undoubtedly reside in the outer halos of galaxies adjacent to this field, detailed modeling of their distribution suggests that the majority of these objects are likely to be intergalactic, in the sense that they are not gravitationally bound to any individual galaxy. We conclude that the true nature and origin of the globular cluster population in the core of A1185 - galactic residents or intergalactic wanderers - remains uncertain, and suggest how future observation could resolve this ambiguity.",
keywords = "cD, galaxies: clusters: individual: Abell 1185, galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, galaxies: formation, galaxies: interactions, globular clusters: general",
author = "West, {M. J.} and A. Jord{\'a}n and Blakeslee, {J. P.} and P. C{\^o}t{\'e} and Gregg, {M. D.} and M. Takamiya and Marzke, {R. O.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Stefano Andreon and Jean-Charles Cuillandre for kindly providing their reduced CFH12k images of A1185, Sidney van den Bergh for enlightening discussions, and the anonymous referee for suggestions that helped to improve the paper. Support for programme HST-GO-9488 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. This research made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. M.J.W. thanks the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics for its hospitality during much of this work and acknowledges additional support from NSF grant AST 02-05960. A.J. acknowledges support from Fondecyt project 1095213, Anillo ACT86, BASAL CATA PFB-06, FONDAP CFA 15010003 and MIDEPLAN ICM Nucleus P07-021-F. Part of the work reported here was done at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and in part under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.",
year = "2011",
doi = "10.1051/0004-6361/201015939",
language = "English",
volume = "528",
journal = "Astronomy and Astrophysics",
issn = "0004-6361",
publisher = "EDP Sciences",
}