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        Mercer 5: a probable new globular cluster in the Galactic bulge

        Author
        Longmore, A.J.
        Kurtev, R.
        Lucas, P.W.
        Froebrich, D.
        de Grijs, R.
        Ivanov, V.D.
        Maccarone, T. J.
        Borissova, J.
        Ker, L. M.
        Attention
        2299/11056
        Abstract
        We present a detailed study of a dust-obscured Galactic star cluster Mercer 5 ([MCM2005b] 5) in an extremely crowded field in the Milky Way. Near-infrared (near-IR) photometry from United Kingdom Infrared Digital Sky Surveys (UKIDSS) and the Son of ISAAC on the New Technology Telescope (SofI/NTT), combined with near-IR spectroscopy also from SofI, indicates that it is almost certainly a Galactic globular cluster, located at the edge of the Galactic bulge. The cluster suffers similar to 9 mag of visual extinction, with strong evidence for an extinction gradient across the cluster. A simulation of the differential reddening in the cluster using empirical data from NGC 6539 (chosen because it had high signal-to-noise ratio data and low field star contamination) as a template mimics the observations extremely well. This simulation and other arguments are used to indicate that the most prominent clump of stars in the colour-magnitude diagrams is a horizontal branch clump. On this basis we conclude that the cluster is at a distance of similar to 5.5 kpc and suffers from visual extinction ranging from similar to 8.5 to similar to 12.5 mag. Alternative explanations for its nature, such as a young cluster or an old open cluster, are much less likely, on the grounds of no visible main sequence or stars with IR excesses for the former and location versus lifetime arguments for the latter.
        Publication date
        2011-09
        Published in
        Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
        Published version
        https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19056.x
        Other links
        http://hdl.handle.net/2299/11056
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