New cluster members and halo stars of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 1851

Abstract

NGC 1851 is an intriguing Galactic globular cluster, with multiple stellar evolutionary sequences, light and heavy element abundance variations and indications of a surrounding stellar halo. We present the first results of a spectroscopic study of red giant stars within and outside of the tidal radius of this cluster. Our results identify nine probable new cluster members (inside the tidal radius) with heliocentric radial velocities consistent with that of NGC 1851. We also identify, based on their radial velocities, four probable extratidal cluster halo stars at distances up to ∼3.1 times the tidal radius, which are supportive of previous findings that NGC 1851 is surrounded by an extended stellar halo. Proper motions were available for 12 of these 13 stars and all are consistent with that of NGC 1851. Apart from the cluster members and cluster halo stars, our observed radial velocity distribution agrees with the expected distribution from a Besançon disc/N-body stellar halo Milky Way model generated by the galaxia code, suggesting that no other structures at different radial velocities are present in our field. The metallicities of these stars are estimated using equivalent width measurements of the near-infrared calcium triplet absorption lines and are found, within the limitations of this method, to be consistent with that of NGC 1851. In addition we recover 110 red giant cluster members from previous studies based on their radial velocities and identify three stars with unusually high radial velocities.