University of Groningen Ultra-compact dwarfs beyond the centre of the Fornax galaxy cluster: Hints of UCD formation in low-density environments Saifollahi, Teymoor; Janz, Joachim; Peletier, Reynier F.; Cantiello, Michele; Hilker, Michael; Mieske, Steffen; Valentijn, Edwin A.; Venhola, Aku; Verdoes Kleijn, Gijs Published in: ArXiv IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Early version, also known as pre-print Publication date: 2021 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Saifollahi, T., Janz, J., Peletier, R. F., Cantiello, M., Hilker, M., Mieske, S., Valentijn, E. A., Venhola, A., & Verdoes Kleijn, G. (Accepted/In press). 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Download date: 24-09-2021 MNRAS 000,1–29 (2020) Preprint 2 April 2021 Compiled using MNRAS LATEX style file v3.0 Ultra-compact dwarfs beyond the centre of the Fornax galaxy cluster: Hints of UCD formation in low-density environments Teymoor Saifollahi1¢, Joachim Janz2,3, Reynier F. Peletier1, Michele Cantiello4, Michael Hilker5, Steffen Mieske6, Edwin A. Valentijn1, Aku Venhola3, Gijs Verdoes Kleijn1 1Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands 2Finnish Centre of Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), Vesilinnantie 5, FI-20014 University of Turku, Finland 3Space Physics and Astronomy Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FI-90014, Oulu, Finland 4 INAF osservatorio astronomico d’Abruzzo, via Magrini snc, I-64100, Teramo, Italy 5 European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, D-85748, Garching bei München, Germany 6 European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile Accepted XXX. Received YYY; in original form ZZZ ABSTRACT Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) were serendipitously discovered by spectroscopic sur- veys in the Fornax cluster twenty years ago. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that many bright UCDs are the nuclei of galaxies that have been stripped. However, this conclusion might be driven by biased samples of UCDs in high-density environments, on which most searches are based. With the deep optical images of the Fornax Deep Survey, combined with public near-infrared data, we revisit the UCD population of the Fornax cluster and search for UCD candidates, for the first time, systematically out to the virial radius of the galaxy cluster. Our search is complete down to magnitude m6 = 21 mag or M6 ∼ -10.5 mag at the distance of the Fornax cluster. The UCD candidates are identified and separated from foreground stars and background galaxies by their optical and near-infrared colours. This primarily utilizes the D − 8/8 − B diagram and a machine learning technique is employed to incorporate other colour combinations to reduce the number of contaminants. The newly identified candidates (44) in addition to the spectroscopically confirmed UCDs (61), increases the number of known Fornax UCD considerably (105). Almost all of the new UCD candidates are located outside the Fornax cluster core (360 kpc), where all of the known UCDs were found. The distribution of UCDs within the Fornax cluster shows that a population of UCDs may form in low-density environments. This most likely challenges the current models of UCD formation. Key words: galaxies: clusters: individual: Fornax - galaxies: evolution - galaxies: dwarf - galaxies: star clusters: general 1 INTRODUCTION old stellar populations and a wide range of metallicities (Firth et al. 2009; Janz et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2018; Fahrion et al. 2020a; arXiv:2104.00004v1 [astro-ph.GA] 31 Mar 2021 In the late 90s, through the spectroscopic surveys of the Fornax Forbes et al. 2020). Moreover, they have on average a dynamical to galaxy cluster, Hilker et al.(1999) and Drinkwater et al.(2000a) stellar mass ratio M3H=/M∗ ¡ 1 (M3H=/M∗ = 1.7±0.2 for massive independently reported the detection of very compact objects at the 7 UCDs with M ¡ 10 M ), while for typical GCs, M /M∗ ∼ 1 redshift of the cluster, brighter than globular clusters and fainter than 3H= (Mieske et al. 2013). compact dwarf galaxies. Since then, many studies have been carried out to investigate the origin of these so-called Ultra-Compact Dwarf As a result of the studies in the past two decades, two main Galaxies (UCDs, Phillipps et al. 2001). UCDs are larger, brighter formation scenarios for UCDs are suggested. In the first scenario, and more massive than typical globular clusters (GCs) with typical UCDs are the remnant nuclei of tidally disrupted galaxies (Bekki et al. 2003). In this scenario, when a nucleated galaxy with a dis- half-light radii of 10 ≤ rℎ ≤ 100 pc, luminosities between -13.0 ≤ 6 8 M6 ≤ -10.0 mag and masses in a range from 2×10 M to < 10 M tinct and high-density nuclear star cluster (NSC) undergoes tidal (Mieske et al. 2008; Misgeld & Hilker 2011) with predominantly stripping, it loses most of its stars except the central ones, where the gravitational potential is strong enough to confine stars. Addition- ally, gravitational interactions induce gas in-fall into the centre of the ¢ E-mail: [email protected] galaxy and initiate star formation which can change the stellar pop- © 2020 The Authors 2 T. Saifollahi et al. ulations of the nucleus (den Brok et al. 2014; Ordenes-Briceño et al. Drinkwater et al.(2000b) 2 covered a larger fraction of the clus- 2018b; Johnston et al. 2020). In response, the stellar populations and ter. However, the data reached m6 = 20 mag (80% complete) and star formation history of the future UCD deviates from the original were therefore limited to the brightest and most massive UCDs. populations of the nucleus. The detection of tidal features (Voggel This magnitude corresponds to M6 = -11.5 mag and stellar mass of 7 et al. 2016a, Schweizer et al. 2018), extended halos (Evstigneeva 10 " at the distance of Fornax. Drinkwater et al.(2000b) did not et al. 2008, Liu et al. 2020) and asymmetries in the morphology find any UCD outside of the cluster’s core (Fig.1). (Wittmann et al. 2016) in addition to an extended star formation Because of the small size of the majority of the UCD/GCs, history (Norris et al. 2015) and multiple stellar populations (Mieske identification of these objects in images is challenging. To spa- et al. 2008; Da Rocha et al. 2011) that have been observed in some tially resolve them at low redshifts, ground-based observations in UCDs, support the stripped nuclei scenario. Moreover, the progeni- excellent seeing conditions or space-based observations are needed tor’s central black hole remains unchanged by the stripping, leading (Richtler et al. 2005; den Brok et al. 2014; Jordán et al. 2015; Voggel to a higher M3H=/M∗. A SMBH with a mass of 15% on the average et al. 2016b). Otherwise, the majority of UCD/GCs appear as point- can explain the elevated M3H=/M∗ (Mieske et al. 2013). However, sources which makes them indistinguishable from foreground stars there are cases for which this does not apply or it is not the whole (Milky Way stars) or distant background galaxies. Traditionally, answer since the SMBH is unlikely to be massive enough to ex- optical photometry is used to select UCD/GC candidates around plain the observed dynamical to stellar mass ratio (Janz et al. 2015). galaxies and in galaxy clusters (Taylor et al. 2016; Angora et al. High-resolution observations (spatial and spectral) of the brightest 2019; Prole et al. 2019; Cantiello et al. 2020). Adding information 6 UCDs found supermassive black holes (¡ 10 M ) in a few cases from infrared bands can substantially improve this selection. Muñoz (Seth et al. 2014; Ahn et al. 2017, 2018; Afanasiev et al. 2018)1. et al.(2014) showed that the compact sources (UCD/GCs) in the Alternatives such as variations in the initial mass function (IMF) Virgo cluster follow a well-defined sequence in the optical/near- are proposed to explain the elevated M3H=/M∗ (Forbes et al. 2014; infrared colour-colour diagram which can be employed as a tool for Villaume et al. 2017; Kroupa 2020; Haghi et al. 2020). identifying them (Liu et al. 2015; Powalka et al. 2017; Cantiello In the second scenario, UCDs are the outcome of star cluster et al. 2018; González-Lópezlira et al. 2019; Liu et al. 2020). formation processes, either as the brightest and most massive ex- Using the optical data from the Fornax Deep Survey (FDS, amples of GCs at the bright end of the GCs luminosity function Iodice et al. 2016; Venhola et al. 2018) combined with the near- (GCLF) (Mieske et al. 2002) or as the result of merging stellar infrared observations of the Vista Hemisphere Survey (VHS) and super clusters (Fellhauer & Kroupa 2002). In this case, UCDs are ESO/VISTA archival data, we aim to identify the possible popula- the extension of GCs and share most of their properties.