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Description
Globular clusters (GCs) are tracers of the gravitational potential of their host galaxies. Moreover, their kinematic properties may provide clues for understanding the formation of GC systems and their host galaxies. We use the largest set of GC velocities obtained so far of any elliptical galaxy to revise and extend the previous investigations (Richtler et al., 2004AJ....127.2094R) of the dynamics of NGC 1399, the central dominant galaxy of the nearby Fornax cluster of galaxies. The GC velocities are used to study the kinematics, their relation with population properties, and the dark matter halo of NGC 1399. We have obtained 477 new medium-resolution spectra (of these, 292 are spectra from 265 individual GCs, 241 of which are not in the previous data set). with the VLT FORS 2 and Gemini South GMOS multi--object spectrographs. We revise velocities for the old spectra and measure velocities for the new spectra, using the same templates to obtain an homogeneously treated data set. Our entire sample now comprises velocities for almost 700 GCs with projected galactocentric radii between 6 and 100kpc. In addition, we use velocities of GCs at larger distances published by Bergond et al. (2007, Cat. J/A+A/464/L21). Combining the kinematic data with wide-field photometric Washington data, we study the kinematics of the metal-poor and metal--rich subpopulations. We discuss in detail the velocity dispersions of subsamples and perform spherical Jeans modelling.
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