Issue |
A&A
Volume 683, March 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A151 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202348534 | |
Published online | 15 March 2024 |
First deep search of tidal tails in the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 6362
1
Instituto Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Básicas (ICB), CONICET-UNCUYO, Padre J. Contreras 1300, M5502JMA Mendoza, Argentina
e-mail: andres.piatti@fcen.uncu.edu.ar
2
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Godoy Cruz 2290, C1425FQB Buenos Aires, Argentina
Received:
9
November
2023
Accepted:
16
January
2024
I present results of the analysis of a set of images obtained in the field of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 6362 using the Dark Energy Camera, which is mounted in the 4.0 m Victor Blanco telescope of the Cerro-Tololo Interamerican Observatory. The cluster was selected as a science case for deep high-quality photometry because of the controversial observational findings and theoretical predictions on the existence of cluster tidal tails. The collected data allowed me to build an unprecedented deep cluster field color-magnitude diagram, from which I filtered stars to produce a stellar density map, to trace the stellar density variation as a function of the position angle for different concentric annuli centered on the cluster, and to construct a cluster stellar density radial profile. I also built a stellar density map from a synthetic color-magnitude diagram generated from a model of the stellar population distribution in the Milky Way. The entire analysis approach converged toward a relatively smooth stellar density between 1 and ∼3.8 cluster Jacobi radii, with a slight difference smaller than two times the background stellar density fluctuation between the mean stellar density of the southeastern hemisphere and that of the northwestern one, with the latter being higher. Moreover, the spatial distribution of the recently claimed tidal tail stars agrees well not only with the observed composite star field distribution, but also with the region least affected by interstellar absorption. Nevertheless, I detected a low stellar density excess around the cluster’s Jacobi radius, from which I conclude that NGC 6362 presents a thin extra tidal halo.
Key words: methods: observational / techniques: polarimetric / globular clusters: general / globular clusters: individual: NGC 6362
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.