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Title:
An Overdensity of Very Red Field Objects Around M60/NGC4647
Authors:
Yan, Haojing; Hathi, N. P.; Windhorst, R. A.
Affiliation:
AA(Carnegie Observatories), AB(Arizona State University), AC(Arizona State University)
Publication:
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #122.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.952
Publication Date:
12/2007
Origin:
AAS
Bibliographic Code:
2007AAS...21112206Y

Abstract

We report a large overdensity of field objects in two separate regions in the vicinity of the interacting galaxy pair M60/NGC4647, which are members of the Virgo Cluster. This population of excess field objects is found in two HST/ACS fields that are 7 and 15 arcmin away from M60/NGC4647, which correspond to 32 and 69 kpc at the distance of the pair. The spatial distributions of the field objects in these regions show a clear gradient with respect to the interacting pair. We argue that this excess population is most likely tidal ``debris'' and/or halo stars related to the galaxy pair rather than to the Virgo Cluster in general. If this interpretation is correct, their absolute magnitudes are around -4.4 mag in z-band. These objects are very red, with their (i-z) color distribution peaking at 0.6 mag. Among them, several hundreds of objects have (i-z) > 1.3 mag. We have obtained NICMOS J and H photometry for a fraction of these objects, and have found that their optical-to-near-IR colors cannot be easily explained by any known galactic stars.

The authors acknowledge the support from the NASA grants HST-GO-09780.*.

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