Galactic Archeology with Bulge Globular Clusters


Monday, 20 May 2024 8 a.m. — 9 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
Douglas Geisler (Universidad de La Serena)
Given their old and accurate ages, globular clusters are excellent fossil tracers of the formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Halo GCs have told us much about the past of this mostly accreted component. Bulge GCs have an equally if not more important story to tell us about the history of this mostly in situ component, but until very recently have been prevented to bear witness due to extreme extinction. The development of near IR instruments has allowed us to break thru the fog and finally study them in detail.
I will discuss work our group has been carrying out on obtaining near IR photometry and spectroscopy of bulge GCs in an effort to discover their secrets, in particular the CAPOS (bulge Cluster APOgee Survey) project. I will present results in the context of Galactic archeology based on ASPCAP analysis of all 18 CAPOS globulars.