Globular cluster system erosion and nucleus formation in elliptical galaxies

Abstract

The radial distribution of globular clusters in galaxies is always less peaked to the centre than the halo stars'. Extending previous work to a sample of HST globular cluster systems in ellipticals, we evaluate the number of clusters lost to the galactic centre as the integrals of the difference between the observed globular cluster system distribution and the underlying halo light profile. It results that the initial populations of globular clusters were from 25% to 50% richer than now. This significant number of missing globular clusters supports the hypothesis that a large quantity of globular cluster mass in form of globular clusters decayed and destroyed has been lost to the galactic centres, where plausibly contributed to formation and feeding of a mas sive object therein. It is relevant noting that the observed correlation between the core radius of the globular cluster system and the parent galaxy luminosity can be interpreted as a result of evolution.Comment: Latex file + 2 figures as postscript files; it needs standard MNRAS style file and epsf macro for figures. Paper submitted to MNRA