Description
With the ultimate aim of distinguishing between various models describing the formation of galaxy halos (e.g., radial or multiphase collapse and random mergers), we have completed a spectroscopic study of the globular cluster system of M31. We present the results of deep intermediate-resolution fiber-optic spectroscopy of several hundred of the M31 globular clusters using the Wide Field Fibre Optic Spectrograph at the William Herschel Telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands. These observations have yielded precise radial velocities (+/-12km/s) and metallicities (+/-0.26dex) for over 200 members of the M31 globular cluster population out to a radius of 1.5{deg} from the galaxy center. Many of these clusters have no previous published radial velocity or [Fe/H] estimates, and the remainder typically represent significant improvements over earlier determinations. We present analyses of the spatial, kinematic, and metal abundance properties of the M31 globular clusters.
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