The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. IX. The Color Distributions of Globular Cluster Systems in Early‐Type Galaxies

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.