Globular clusters in NGC 474 from CFHT obs.

Metal-poor GCs, in particular, are thought to arrive in massive galaxies largely through dry, minor merging events, but it is rare to see a direct connection between GCs and visible stellar streams. NGC 474 is a post-merger early-type galaxy with dramatic fine structures made of concentric shells and radial streams that have been more clearly revealed by deep imaging.

We present a study of GCs in NGC 474 to better establish the relationship between merger-induced fine structure and the GC system. We find that many GCs are superimposed on visible streams and shells, and about 35% of GCs outside 3R_e,galaxy_ are located in regions of fine structure. The spatial correlation between GCs and fine structure is significant at the 99.9% level, which shows that this correlation is not coincidental.