• DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/201015795
• Corpus ID: 119232881

Discovery of VVV CL001 A low-mass globular cluster next to UKS 1 in the direction of the Galactic bulge

@article{Minniti2010DiscoveryOV,
  title={Discovery of VVV CL001 A low-mass globular cluster next to UKS 1 in the direction of the Galactic bulge},
  author={Dante Minniti and Maren Hempel and Ignacio Toledo and Valentin D. Ivanov and Javier Alonso-Garc'ia and Roberto K. Saito and M{\'a}rcio Catel{\'a}n and Douglas Geisler and Andr'es Jord'an and Jura Borissova and Manuela Zoccali and Radostin Kurtev and Giovanni Carraro and Beatriz Barbuy and Juan J. Clari'a and Marina Rejkuba and James P. Emerson and Cristian Moni Bidin},
  journal={Astronomy and Astrophysics},
  year={2010},
  volume={527}
}

• D. Minniti, M. Hempel, +15 authors C. M. Bidin
• Published 11 December 2010
• Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics

Context. It is not known how many globular clusters may have been left undetected towards the Galactic bulge. Aims. One of the aims of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) Survey is to accurately measure the physical parameters of the known globular clusters in the inner regions of the Milky Way and to search for new ones, hidden in regions of large extinction. Methods. Deep near infrared images give deep JHKS-band photometry of a region surrounding the known globular cluster UKS 1 and reveal a new low-mass globular cluster candidate that we name VVV CL001. Results. We use the horizontal branch red clump in order to measure E(B-V) 2.2 mag, (m M)0 = 16:01 mag, and D=15.9 kpc for the globular cluster UKS 1. Based on the near-infrared colour magnitude diagrams, we also measure that VVV CL001 has E(B-V) 2.0, and that it is at least as metal-poor as UKS 1, however, its distance remains uncertain. Conclusions. Our finding confirms the previous projection that the central region of the Milky Way harbors more globular clusters. VVV CL001 and UKS 1 are good candidates for a physical cluster binary, but follow-up observations are needed to decide if they are located at the same distance and have similar radial velocities.