Multicolour-metallicity Relations from Globular Clusters in NGC 4486
  (M87)
  We present Gemini griz photometry for 521 globular cluster (GC) candidates in
a 5.5 x 5.5 arcmin field centered 3.8 arcmin to the south and 0.9 arcmin to the
west of the center of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4486. All these objects
have previously published (C-T1) photometry. We also present new (C-T1)
photometry for 338 globulars, within 1.7 arcmin in galactocentric radius, which
have (g-z) colors in the photometric system adopted by the Virgo Cluster Survey
of the Advanced Camera for Surveys of the Hubble Space Telescope. These
photometric data are used to define a self-consistent multicolor grid (avoiding
polynomial fits) and preliminary calibrated in terms of two chemical abundance
scales. The resulting multicolor color-chemical abundance relations are used to
test GC chemical abundance distributions. This is accomplished by modelling the
ten GC color histograms that can be defined in terms of the Cgriz bands. Our
results suggest that the best fit to the GC observed color histograms is
consistent with a genuinely bimodal chemical abundance distribution NGC(Z). On
the other side, each (blue and red) GC subpopulation follows a distinct
color-color relation.
