• DOI:10.1093/mnras/sty1767
• Corpus ID: 56027181

Metallicity gradients in the globular cluster systems of early-type galaxies: in situ and accreted components?

@article{Forbes2018MetallicityGI,
  title={Metallicity gradients in the globular cluster systems of early-type galaxies: in situ and accreted components?},
  author={Duncan A. Forbes and Rhea-Silvia Remus},
  journal={Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
  year={2018}
}

• D. Forbes, R. Remus
• Published 5 July 2018
• Physics
• Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Massive early-type galaxies typically have two subpopulations of globular clusters (GCs) which often reveal radial colour (metallicity) gradients. Collating gradients from the literature, we show that the gradients in the metal-rich and metal-poor GC subpopulations are the same, within measurement uncertainties, in a given galaxy. Furthermore, these GC gradients are similar in strength to the {\it stellar} metallicity gradient of the host galaxy. At the very largest radii (e.g. greater than 8 galaxy effective radii) there is some evidence that the GC gradients become flat with near constant mean metallicity. Using stellar metallicity gradients as a proxy, we probe the assembly histories of massive early-type galaxies with hydrodynamical simulations from the Magneticum suite of models. In particular, we measure the stellar metallicity gradient for the in-situ and accreted components over a similar radial range as those observed for GC subpopulations. We find that the in-situ and accreted stellar metallicity gradients are similar but have a larger scatter than the metal-rich and metal-poor GC subpopulations gradients in a given galaxy. We conclude that although metal-rich GCs are predominately formed during the in-situ phase and metal-poor GCs during the accretion phase of massive galaxy formation, they do not have a strict one-to-one connection.