Schedule Jan 15, 2009
Surveying the Dynamical Structure of Globular Cluster Systems
Aaron Romanowsky (UCO/Lick)

I will present results from a new survey of extragalactic globular cluster systems (GCSs) and their host galaxies, using primarily Keck/DEIMOS and Subaru/Suprime-Cam. The high-quality, wide-field photometry and spectroscopy allow us to extract a wealth of constraints on GC and galaxy evolution, including measurements of GC specific frequency, rotation, orbital anisotropy, and galaxy dark matter content, as well as identifications of moving groups of GCs, correlations between GCs and X-ray binaries, and between GCS and stellar dynamical distributions. Among our more interesting findings so far are evidence for dynamically and chemically distinct bright GC subpopulations that may connect to dwarf-globular transition objects; a typically tangential orbital bias for GCs, posing a challenge to theoretical models of their formation and disruption; and trends of GC rotation with galaxy luminosity and type which support the picture of group-central galaxies as multiple-merger remnants with low angular momenta, and which suggest that lenticular galaxies as more closely related to disky ellipticals than to spirals.

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