William Harris - November 7, 2014

Globular Clusters, Halo Masses, and Galaxy Formation

The total mass contained in a galaxy's globular cluster system is 
certainly not proportional to the total stellar mass in the galaxy, but 
surprisingly it is almost exactly proportional to the galaxy's total halo 
mass including dark matter.  This empirical result may help determine the 
star-forming (and cluster-forming) conditions at redshifts z ~ 3-8.

I will also show new observational work indicating that the mass spectrum 
of massive star clusters (young globular clusters) is not a simple power 
law but may have a lognormal shape from the beginning.