HSTPROMO. III. Dynamical distances

For most of the clusters, this is the first dynamical distance estimate ever determined. We extract proper-motion (PM) dispersion profiles using cleaned samples of bright stars from the Hubble Space Telescope PM catalogs recently presented in Bellini et al. (Paper I, 2014, J/ApJ/797/115) and compile a set of line of sight (LOS) velocity-dispersion profiles from a variety of literature sources.

Distances are then estimated by fitting spherical, non-rotating, isotropic, constant mass-to-light ratio (M/L) dynamical models to the PM and LOS dispersion profiles together. We compare our dynamical distance estimates with literature photometric estimates from the Harris GC catalog (VII/202) and find that the mean fractional difference between the two types is consistent with zero at just -1.9+/-1.7%. This indicates that there are no significant biases in either estimation method and provides an important validation of the stellar-evolution theory that underlies photometric distance estimates.