Massive Star Clusters in Dwarf Galaxies

Abstract

Dwarf galaxies can have very high globular cluster specific frequencies, and the GCs are in general significantly more metal-poor than the bulk of the field stars. In some dwarfs, such as Fornax, WLM, and IKN, the fraction of metal-poor stars that belong to GCs can be as high as 20%-25%, an order of magnitude higher than the 1%-2% typical of GCs in halos of larger galaxies. Given that chemical abundance anomalies appear to be present also in GCs in dwarf galaxies, this implies severe difficulties for self-enrichment scenarios that require GCs to have lost a large fraction of their initial masses. More generally, the number of metal-poor field stars in these galaxies is today less than what would originally have been present in the form of low-mass clusters if the initial cluster mass function was a power-law extending down to low masses. This may imply that the initial GC mass function in these dwarf galaxies was significantly more top-heavy than typically observed in present-day star forming environments.