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A. Lauchner, R. Wilhelm (Texas Tech), T.C. Beers, Y. Lee (Michigan State Univ. & JINA), C. Bailer-Jones (MPIA, Germany), A. McWilliam (Carnegie Observatories)
Recent Star count surveys of areas around globular star clusters have shown strong evidence of tidal tails stretching out many degrees beyond the cluster tidal radius. These tails are believed to be cluster stars that have escaped due to tidal shocking after passages through the disk of the galaxy. We have developed a process that searches for evidence of these tails by counting statistical over-densities of stars which fit the cluster?s observed fiducial location in color-magnitude space. These results are further refined through the use of photometrically predicted stellar abundances. We will present the results of this search for nine clusters inside the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 footprint. In addition, we will show results from a preliminary kinematic follow-up study of stars near several of these clusters and discuss planned improvements for this approach.
T.C.B., and Y.L. acknowledge partial support from grant AST 04-06784, as well as from grant PHY 02-16783, Physics Frontier Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA), awarded by the US National Science Foundation.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.