Bibcode
Rey, Soo-Chang; Sohn, Sangmo T.; Beasley, Michael A.; Lee, Young-Wook; Rich, R. Michael; Yoon, Suk-Jin; Yi, Sukyoung K.; Bianch, Luciana; Kang, Yongbeom; Lee, Kyeongsook; Chung, Chul; Lee, Sang-Yoon; Barlow, Tom A.; Foster, Karl; Friedman, Peter G.; Martin, D. Christopher; Morrissey, Patrick; Neff, Susan G.; Schiminovich, David; Seibert, Mark; Wyder, Ted K.; Donas, Jose; Heckman, Timothy M.; Madore, Barry F.; Milliard, Bruno; Szalay, Alex S.; Welsh, Barry Y.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 700, Issue 1, pp. L11-L15 (2009).
Advertised on:
7
2009
Citations
12
Refereed citations
12
Description
We explore the age distribution of the globular cluster (GC) system of
the nearby elliptical galaxy NGC 5128 using ultraviolet (UV) photometry
from GALEX observations, with UV-optical colors used as the age
indicator. Most GCs in NGC 5128 follow the general trends of GCs in M31
and the Milky Way in the UV-optical color-color diagram, which indicates
that the majority of GCs in NGC 5128 are old similar to the age range of
old GCs in M31 and the Milky Way. A large fraction of spectroscopically
identified intermediate-age GC (IAGC) candidates with ~3-8 Gyr are not
detected in the far-UV (FUV) passband. Considering the nature of
intermediate-age populations being faint in the FUV passband, we suggest
that many of the spectroscopically identified IAGCs may be truly
intermediate in age. This is in contrast to the case of M31 where a
large fraction of spectroscopically suggested IAGCs are detected in FUV
and therefore may not be genuine IAGCs but rather older GCs with
developed blue horizontal branch stars. Our UV photometry strengthens
the results previously suggesting the presence of GC and stellar
subpopulation with intermediate age in NGC 5128. The existence of IAGCs
strongly indicates the occurrence of at least one more major star
formation episode after a starburst at high redshift.