Wide‐Field Survey of Globular Clusters in M31. II. Kinematics of the Globular Cluster System
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abstract
We present a kinematic analysis of the globular cluster(GC) system in M31.
Using the photometric and spectroscopic database of 504 GCs, we have
investigated the kinematics of the M31 GC system. We find that the all GC
system shows strong rotation, with rotation amplitude of v_rot~190km/s, and
that a weak rotation persists even for the outermost samples at |Y|>5kpc. The
rotation-corrected velocity dispersion for the GC system is estimated to be
sigma_{p,r}~130km/s, and it increases from sigma_{p,r}~120km/s at |Y|<1kpc to
sigma_{p,r}~150km/s at |Y|>5kpc. These results are very similar to those for
the metal-poor GCs. This shows that there is a dynamically hot halo in M31 that
is rotating but primarily pressure-supported. We have identified 50
"friendless" GCs, and they appear to rotate around the major axis of M31. For
the subsamples of metal-poor and metal-rich GCs, we have found that the
metal-rich GCs are more centrally concentrated than the metal-poor GCs, and
both subsamples show strong rotation. For the subsamples of bright and faint
GCs, it is found that the rotation for the faint GCs is stronger than that for
the bright GCs. We have identified 56 GCs and GC candidates with X-ray
detection. It is found that the majority of X-ray emitting GCs follow the disk
rotation, and that the redder, more metal-rich, and brighter GCs are more
likely to be detected as X-ray emitting GCs. We have derived a rotation curve
of M31 using the GCs at |Y|<0.6kpc. We have estimated the dynamical mass of M31
using `Projected Mass Estimator(PME)' and `Tracer Mass Estimator(TME)'. We
finally discuss the implication of these results and compare the kinematics of
GCs with that of planetary nebulae in M31.
