Chemical composition and constraints on mass loss for globular clusters in dwarf galaxies: WLM and IKN

Abstract

We determine the metallicities for globular clusters (GCs) in the WLM and IKN dwarf galaxies, using VLT/UVES and Keck/ESI spectroscopy. For the WLM GC we also measure detailed abundance ratios for a number of light, alpha, Fe-peak and n-capture elements. We find low metallicities of [Fe/H]=-2.0 and -2.1 for the WLM GC and the GC IKN-5, respectively. We estimate that 17%-31% of the metal-poor stars in WLM belong to the GC, and IKN-5 may even contain a similar number of metal-poor stars as the whole of the IKN dwarf itself. These high ratios of metal-poor GCs to field stars are in tension with GC formation scenarios that require GCs to have lost a very large fraction of their initial mass. The GCs in the WLM and IKN dwarf galaxies resemble those in the Fornax dSph by being significantly more metal-poor than a typical halo GC in the Milky Way and other large galaxies. They are also substantially more metal-poor than the bulk of the field stars in their parent galaxies. The overall abundance patterns in the WLM GC are similar to those observed for GCs in the Fornax dSph: [Ca/Fe] and [Ti/Fe] are super-Solar at about +0.3 dex, while [Mg/Fe] is less elevated than [Ca/Fe] and [Ti/Fe]. The [Na/Fe] ratio is similar to the averaged [Na/Fe] ratios in Milky Way GCs, but higher than those of Milky Way halo stars. Fe-peak (Mn, Sc, Cr) and heavy elements (Ba, Y, La) generally follow the trends seen in the Milky Way halo. The relatively high Na abundance in the WLM GC suggests that the [Na/O] anti-correlation is present in this cluster.