The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. IX. The Color Distributions of Globular Cluster Systems in Early‐Type Galaxies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We present the color distributions of globular cluster (GC) systems for 100 early-type galaxies observed in the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey, the deepest and most homogeneous survey of this kind to date. On average, galaxies at all luminosities in our study (-22 < M B < -15) appear to have bimodal or asymmetric GC color distributions. Almost all galaxies possess a component of metal-poor GCs, with the average fraction of metal-rich GCs ranging from 15% to 60% and increasing with luminosity. The colors of both subpopulations correlate with host galaxy luminosity and color, with the red GCs having a steeper slope. To convert color to metallicity, we introduce a preliminary ( g - z )-[Fe/H] relation calibrated to Galactic, M49, and M87 GCs. This relation is nonlinear, with a steeper slope for [Fe/H] ≲ -0.8. As a result, the metallicities of the metal-poor and metal-rich GCs vary similarly with respect to galaxy luminosity and stellar mass, with relations of [Fe/H] MP ∝ L 0.16±0.04 ∝ M and [Fe/H] MR ∝ L 0.26±0.03 ∝ M , respectively. Although these relations are shallower than the mass-metallicity relation predicted by wind models and observed for dwarf galaxies, they are very similar to the relation observed for star-forming galaxies in the same mass range. The offset between the two GC populations is approximately 1 dex across 3 orders of magnitude in mass, suggesting a nearly universal amount of enrichment between the formation of the two populations of GCs. We also find that although the metal-rich GCs show a larger dispersion in color, it is the metal-poor GCs that have an equal or larger dispersion in metallicity. The similarity in the M ⋆ -[Fe/H] relations for the two populations implies that the conditions of GC formation for metal-poor and metal-rich GCs could not have been too different. Like the color-magnitude relation, these relations derived from globular clusters present stringent constraints on the formation and evolution of early-type galaxies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.007 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".