The SLUGGS survey: inferring the formation epochs of metal-poor and
  metal-rich globular clusters
  We present a novel, observationally-based framework for the formation epochs
and sites of globular clusters (GCs) in a cosmological context. Measuring
directly the mean ages of the metal-poor and metal-rich GC subpopulations in
our own Galaxy, and in other galaxies, is observationally challenging. Here we
apply an alternative approach utilising the property that the galaxy
mass-metallicity relation is a strong function of redshift (or look-back age)
but is relatively insensitive to galaxy mass for massive galaxies. Assuming
that GCs follow galaxy mass-metallicity relations that evolve with redshift,
one can estimate the mean formation epochs of the two GC subpopulations by
knowing their mean metallicities and the growth in host galaxy mass with
redshift. Recently, the SLUGGS survey has measured the spectroscopic
metallicities for over 1000 GCs in a dozen massive early-type galaxies. Here we
use these measurements, and our new metallicity matching method, to infer a
mean age for metal-rich GCs of 11.5 Gyr (z = 2.9) and a range of 12.2 to 12.8
Gyr (4.8 < z < 5.9) for the metal- poor GCs, depending on whether they mostly
formed in accreted satellites or in-situ within the main host galaxy. We
compare our values to direct age measurements for Milky Way GCs and predictions
from cosmological models. Our findings suggest that reionisation preceded most
GC formation, and that it is unlikely to be the cause of GC bimodal metallicity
distributions.
