Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Globular clusters exhibit large star-to-star variations and anticorrelations in their light element abundances that are commonly interpreted in terms of in-cluster self-enrichment, in which ejecta from early-forming cluster stars pollute the gas from which later stars form over millions of years. Yet proposed self-enrichment scenarios suffer from a severe mass-budget problem or invoke exotic stellar populations. Using cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations with a standard chemical enrichment model, we identify a population of giant molecular clouds whose internal abundance patterns reproduce several key globular cluster signatures: large light-element abundance spreads and nitrogen-oxygen anticorrelations at nearly constant iron abundance. These clouds form at the restart of star-formation activity after an earlier starburst, where previously ejected oxygen-rich gas collides with nitrogen-rich galactic gas, and are sites of dense star-cluster formation. In this picture, the chemical abundance patterns of globular clusters need not require extended in-cluster star formation, but can be inherited at birth from chemically structured interstellar gas shaped by the baryon cycle. Globular clusters therefore provide a fossil record of chemical enrichment and gas flows in high-redshift galaxies.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: McClymont, William, Belokurov, Vasily, Tacchella, Sandro, Kannan, Rahul, Smith, Aaron, Puchwein, Ewald, Garaldi, Enrico, Vogelsberger, Mark, Monty, Stephanie, Borrow, Josh, Keating, Laura, Shen, Xuejian, Wang, Zihao, Zier, Oliver, Cho, Changhyun, Isobe, Yuki, Ji, Xihan, Maiolino, Roberto, Pruto, Giulia
Institutions: University of Cambridge, York University, The University of Texas at Dallas, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New Mexico State University, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Edinburgh, Peking University, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7167691376
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