Pal 13: its moderately extended low density halo and its accretion history

Abstract

We present results on the basis of Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS) DR8 astrometric and photometric data sets of the Milky Way globular cluster Pal 13. Because of its relative small size and mass, there has not been yet a general consensus about the existence of extra-tidal structures around it. While some previous results claim for the absence of such features, others have shown that the cluster is under the effects of tidal stripping. From DECaLS g,r magnitudes of stars placed along the cluster Main Sequence in the colour-magnitude diagram --previously corrected by interstellar reddening--, we built the cluster stellar density map. The resulting density map shows nearly smooth contours around Pal 13 out to 1.6 times the most recent estimate of its Jacobi radius, derived by taking into account its variation along its orbital motion. This outcome favours the presence of stars escaping the cluster, a phenomenon frequently seen in globular clusters that have crossed the Milky Way disc a comparable large number of times. Particularly, the orbital high eccentricity and large inclination angle of this accreted globular cluster could have been responsible for the relatively large amount of cluster mass lost.