2019 Undergraduate Physics Research Symposium Program

The influence of galaxy cluster environment on the kinematics of the stripped globular clusters Globular clusters (GCs) contain relic information about the star formation history of their host galaxies. However, the development of a theoretical model for formation, evolution and disruption of GCs in a cosmological context is still at its infancy. Lack of a theoretical model to relate kinematics and distribution of the intracluster GCs to the underlying environmental processes in the history of the galaxy cluster has become a pressing issue in observational astrophysics in recent years. This is particularly due to the observation of tens of thousands of GCs in the intracluster environment of the Virgo as well as Coma galaxy clusters. In the postprocessing of IllustrisTNG, the most recent cosmological and magneto-hydrodynamical simulation, we implemented theoretical models of formation and disruption of the intracluster GCs generated in dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs), which are the most abundant galaxies in cluster environments. By implementing dark matter particle-tagging scheme, we obtained the kinematics and distribution of stripped GCs around dEs at z = 0. Then, we retained the origin imprinted in these GCs’ phase-space properties (positions and velocities) which could be used to design observational strategies to identify the full population of native GCs born in dE galaxies.