MASS ESTIMATION IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M4

M.Y. AMIN, M. RASSEM and M. MARIE

Astronomy Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

(Received 11 December, 1996; accepted 21 May, 1997)

Abstract. Using the kinematical data we try to solve the Jeans equation to provide mass estimation
of the globular cluster M4. The proper motion data provides two independent velocity dispersion
profiles which we need in this estimation. Moreover, we have calculated the density distribution
function and checked the anisotropy of the velocity dispersion.
The comparison of the dynamical mass with the estimation stellar mass for M4 gives the best
estimation of the mass inside a spherical shell centered on the cluster, with a radius corresponding to

840 arcsec on the sky, as 4 5 104 M .

1. Introduction

The globular cluster M4 (NGC 6121) is relatively sparse and lies in a crowded field
at l = 357 and b = +16 . This cluster is generally considered the closest globular
cluster to the Sun with distance determination ranges from 1.7 Kpc (Lee, 1977
and Dixon and Longmore, 1993) to 2.0 Kpc (Lloyd Evants, 1977). The cluster was
selected to make a significant contribution to the studies of metal-rich clusters.
Previous photometric studies on M4 include two color B and V photometry
published by Greenstein (1939), Alcaino (1975), Moshkalev (1976), Lee (1977)
and Lloyd Evants (1977). All these authors presented color magnitude diagrams
down to the horizontal branch. Alcaino and Liller (1984) presented multi color
photometry for this cluster down to 3-mag below the turn-off.
The CCD observations to M4 have been published by Richer and Fahlman
(1984), Penny et al. (1987) and Alcaino et al. (1988) to draw more explicit color
magnitude diagram containing two branchs, main sequence and gaint.
More recent CCD photometry of the globular cluster M4 has been given by
Kanatos et al. (1995). The only IR photometric observations for 37 stars in the
region of M4 was published by Phillips et al. (1986).
Many investigations on M4 were made to discover the variable stars in its
region, specially RR-Lyrae variables. These studies were published by Sowyer
Hogg (1973), Alcaino (1975), Lee (1977), Yao (1987) and Yao et al. (1988). Also,
some studies have been done to obtain the radial velocities for the member stars of
M4 such that Peterson (1985), Peterson and Latham (1986).
More recent astrometric study, Cadworth and Rees (1990), made scans of 38
plates from six different telescopes over an epoch range of 90 years to establish
proper motion and photographic photometry for 530 stars down to V ' 16 in
the region of the nearby globular cluster M4. Their color magnitude diagram of
probable members is better defined than previous diagrams and all known variables

Astrophysics and Space Science 250: 137–146, 1997.

c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in Belgium.

gsb: PIPS Nr.: 142437 SPACKAP

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.1
138 M.Y. AMIN ET AL.

are at least possible members. These high quality proper motion study is the base
to our estimation of the mass in the present work.
In his study, Kanatos et al. (1995), investigated the mass function of M4.
The mass function in this study was derived from the luminosity function via
the isochrones of Vandenberg and Bell (1985), which provide a mass-luminosity
relation based on CCD photometry from V ' 12 on the red gaint branch to V ' 25
on the main sequence. They divided the stars into 8-mass bins, the power law mass
fit to their data gives x = 0:15  0:04. The general structure of the function
is quite flat and similar to previously derived by Richer et al. (1991), for M71
and NGC 6397. The most likely explanation of the observed flatness in the mass
function of M4, with the two clusters M71 and NGC 6397 is that these clusters
have undergone extensive tidal stripping.
According to the studies of Lee et al. (1991) and Capaccioli et al. (1991), the
tidal stripping being responsible for the deficiency of low mass stars is reinforced
by the fact that M4, M71 and NGC 6397 are located very close to the galactic disc,
about 0.6 Kpc, making a tidal interaction with the disc very likely. Capaccioli et
al. (1991), revised the relation of the exponent of the power law with metallicity,
and did not confirm the correlation previously suggested by McClure et al. (1987).
Kanatos et al. (1995), state that the metallicity cannot be the only physical parameter
governing the slope of the mass function.
The globular cluster M4 has been discussed as a likely target for Hubble Space
Telescope observations of very faint stars, and as mentioned before, it is selected
as a metal-rich cluster, and the small sample of available mass functions reaching
stars with masses about 0:19M with the limitation of existing models. Owing to
previous reasons the main goal of this work is to investigate the mass of M4 using
dynamical approach, to make good picture about the mass contained in M4-region.
Our paper is organized as follows. The density distribution function has been
estimated in Section 2. In Section 3 we checked the velocity anisotropy and esti-
mated the two independent velocity dispersion profiles. In Section 4 we have also
solved Jeans Equation to obtain the dynamical mass of M4, Mdyn . Estimation are
made to calculate the stellar mass Mstell to the observed tracers inside the region
of M4, and the comparison between Mdyn and Mstell is given in Section 4. While
the summary of our investigation are given in Section 5.

2. Density Distribution Function

The problem of the space distribution of stars in the globular cluster has been
previously discussed by many investigators (Leonard and Merritt, 1989; Plummer,
1991 and Leonard et al., 1992). The density distribution was determined using the
same method as described by Leonard et al. (1992) as follows: for tracer stars, the
adopted density distribution take the form
n(r) / (1 + 2 ) 5=2 (1)

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.2

 MASS ESTIMATION IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M4 139
where n(r ) is the density of a tracer population in the system as a function of radius
r and  = r=ro where ro is the scale radius.
Equation (1) is a good approximation to the density distribution of gaints in the
inner parts of most globular clusters. However the proper motion data extended out
to the tidal radius of a cluster leads to consider a more complicated Equation than
(1).
The surface density distribution corresponding to (1) is
(R) = o (1 + (R=ro )2 ) 2 (2)
where o is the density in core radius of the cluster and R is the projected radius.
To solve Equation (2) for o and ro the position of the cluster center was found by
the same method given by one of us Marie (1993). In this method the counting stars
brighter than the completeness limit (V = 16:4) was obtained in two orthogonal
rectangular strips. The strips were aligned with right ascension and declination,
these strips were divided into 100 bins along their lengths. The density in the bins
was plotted versus position along the strip, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. The center
of symmetry about the peak was taken to be the cluster center.
The projected density distribution of M4 was derived from the proper motion
data set of Cadworth and Rees (1990), as following. The stars were counted in set
of rings around the center. Equation (2) transformed to logarithmic form and by
using this form for each ring we obtained a set of linear Equations in log  and
ro . These equations were solved using the method of 2 . The best fit is ro = 92
arcsec, with a 95% confidence ranges of 42 to 134 arcsec and the resulting density
distribution is given in Figure 3. The value ro = 92 arcsec for the scale radius is in
a good agreement with the core radius given by Peterson and King (1975).

3. Velocity Anisotropy and Dispersion

Having obtained the estimated value of ro , the isotropy of the velocity dispersion
must be checked. To investigate the isotropy of orbital motion within M4, we
divided the rang of magnitude into four bins 10:22 13:22 to 15:22 16:22, in
each bin we take three radius rangs 0 42000 , 42000 84000 and 0 84000 . Each
star’s proper motion and error were computed, in each radius range, along an axis
pointing toward the cluster center and the perpendicular to it. Velocity dispersions
were then computed, in each radius rang, along these axes as a function of radius.
The results are shown in Table I. The quantity K which is the ratio of the radial to
tangential dispersions, is a good indicator to isotropy of velocity dispersion of the
cluster. The degree of velocity anisotropy can be seen much easier by examining
the value of K on the fifth column in Table I, departures from unity indicate
an anisotropy. In this regard it is similar to the cluster Praesepe by Jones (1971)
and McNamara et al. (1986) for M35, except that M4 shows no indication for
anisotropy.

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.3

140 M.Y. AMIN ET AL.

Figure 1. Density distribution in strips along right ascension.

Owing to this fact, the isotropic velocity dispersion profile corresponding to a

Plummer law of density distribution for tracer stars, Equation (1) is given by

iso (r) = o (1 + 2 ) 1=4 (3)

where  is calculated for the different set of rings as mentioned before, and o is the
central velocity dispersion. Now the radial and tangential components of velocity
dispersion based on iso (r ) were adopted as,
 r nr
iso ( )
r (r) = o (4)
o
and,
 r nt
iso ( )
t (r) = o (5)
o
where nr and nt are positive exponents that allow for a wide range of velocity
anisotropy. The fitting to the observed proper motion dispersion profiles to yield

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.4

 MASS ESTIMATION IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M4 141

Figure 2. Density distribution in strips along declination.

o , nr and nt . The parameters ro , o , and nt are what we need to calculate the

dynamical mass of the globular cluster.
So the proper motion dispersion profiles of M4 were derived using all stars in
the Cadworth and Rees data set with V  16:40 and P  50% interior to 840
arcsec.
Our best estimate of the central velocity dispersion is o = 9:8 Km sec 1 at the
cluster distance 2 Kpcs and o = 8:1 Km sec 1 at the cluster distance 1750 pcs.

4. Mass Estimation

4.1. DYNAMICAL MASS

The adopted procedure for the estimation of the dynamical mass of stellar system
from the stellar hydrodynamical, or Jeans equation using the proper motion data is
very similar to that of Leonard et al. (1992) (for M13). The Jeans equation can be
written in the following form,

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.5

142 M.Y. AMIN ET AL.

Figure 3. The surface density profile of M4 derived from proper motion data.

Table I
Isotropic velocity dispersions of M4

r00
V (r ) =
2 1 2
(t ) =
2 1 2
K n
0–420 7.12722 5.93935 1.2 75
420–840 10.22–13.22 11.9823 9.92298 1.2 38
0–840 9.73976 8.06583 1.2 113

0–420 3.74493 4.68116 0.8 142

420–840 13.22–14.22 8.54786 10.4418 0.8 66
0–840 6.77398 8.27490 0.8 208

0–420 3.61427 4.81906 0.8 76

420–840 14.22–15.22 11.0024 12.9417 0.8 48
0–840 9.61833 11.3136 0.8 124

0–420 4.27648 5.25032 0.8 69

420–840 15.22–16.22 0.00000 0.00000






0–840 6.04786 7.42507 0.8 69

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.6

 MASS ESTIMATION IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M4 143
Table II
Dynamical mass and velocity dispersion for different distance
of M4

r kprs o nr nt Mdyn oc

2.000 9.8 0.01 0.19 5  104 +11607
10714 M 10.79
1.750 8.1 0.00 0.16 4  104 +9285
8571 M 9.65

r2 d
GM (r) = (n 2 ) 2r (r2 t2 ) (6)
n dr r
where M (r ) is the mass of all matter in the stellar system within a radius from
the center of the system, G is the gravitational constant, n(r ) is the density of
tracer population in the system given by Equation (1) and r , t are the velocity
dispersions of the tracers parallel and tangential to the radius vector in the system. A
method of solution for Jeans Equation (6) has been adopted by Ogorodnikou et al.
(1978) and Leonard and Merritt (1989). In such procedure it has been shown that,
the surface density profile (R), as a function of projected radius R and the velocity
dispersion profiles in the plane of the sky parallel and tangential to the projected
radius vector are enough information to solve Equation (6). Such information were
obtained for relative proper motions stars in the cluster M4 as mentioned before in
Section 2 and 3.
Therefore the best fit to Equation (6) adopted for the data of Cadworth and
Rees (1990) gives 5  104 +11607
10714 M as a good estimation for the mass and 95%
confidence intervals of all matter around the center of M4 extended up to 84000 . This
mass correspond to physically realistic solution i.e. positive densities as shown in
Figure 3 and positive values nr = 0:01 and nt = 0:19. It is obvious from Figure 3
that a variety of solutions with a wide range of central densities and core radii
can be generated from the adopted density and velocity dispersion profiles. If we
consider the distance 1750 parsec to M4, the fitting of Equation (6) gives the mass
and 95% confidence intervals as 4  104 +9285 8571 M . These are shown in Table II.
As a check for our calculations we compute the velocity dispersion using the
formula given by Chandrasekhars (1947), Equation (5:2090 ) page 201. This was
given in the last column (oc ) of Table II and it lies in confidence limits of o
calculated from our data.

4.2. STELLAR MASS

It is of great interest to make an estimation of the likely mass in the form of stars
interior to 840 arcsec, i.e. Mstell and compare it with the dynamical mass Mdyn
estimated in the previous section. To do this we have used the mass function data
given by Kanatos et al. (1995) as shown in Table (7) of their paper which illustrated
in Figure 4 by dished line, we neglected the first mass bin because the mass range

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.7

144 M.Y. AMIN ET AL.

Figure 4. The observed and calculated mass function for the globular cluster M4.

over this first bin is small and we may observing an artifact due to the adopted
bining in the cluster mass function.
A power-law mass function of the form
 = CM (1+x) ; (7)
where  = dM
dN and M is the stellar mass in solar unit, was fitted to the data in
Table (7) of Kanatos et al. (1995). The resulting fitting is indicated by the solid line
in Figure 4 and represents the data quite well. Best-fit values and 95% confidence
intervals are C = 4540+550 460 and (1 + x) = 0:85  0:02. This small values of x
resure the fact given by Capaccioli and Ortolani (1991), that x depends on the
position of the cluster in the galaxy, in particular, it depends more on the height
above the galactic plane than on the galactic center distance. So the exponent x
of the power low mass function of M4 is appropriate its hight above the galactic
plane, i.e. 0.6 kpc. Therefore, the integrating of Equation (7) gives the stellar mass
of M4 is 2:6  104 M inside the radius 84000 in the form of objects with mass
M  0:18M .
Certainly a large number of low-mass stars exist in M4 and they must be taken
into account in any realistic mass estimate. Kanatos et al. (1995) constructed the
observed mass function for low-mass stars at a moderately large distance from the
core, i.e. 10 core radii from the center. Examining the existing small sample down

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.8

 MASS ESTIMATION IN THE GLOBULAR CLUSTER M4 145
to low masses it is evident that most of them have very steep mass function, with
the slope exceeding 2.5 in some cases.
Thus to estimate the total mass of low mass stars included in M4, we use the
theoretical work for extended the mass luminosity relation for these stars given
by Kanatos et al. (1995) and the adopted mass-luminosity relation for M4 for low
mass stars from Drukier et al. (1988). Owing to these results we divided the low
mass stars into four mass bins for M <0:18M and calculate the total mass in each
bin using the power low mass and adopted the procedure maintained in Leonard et
al. (1992) with our mass ranges. So the total masses with power factors 2.5, 2.0,
1.5, and 1.0 for low mass ranges is 1:45  104 M .
The combinations of masses in two ranges M  0:18M and M <0:18M gives
a total mass M(stell) of M4 about 4:0  104M is less than Mdyn by 20% for a mass
at distance 2 kprs. This difference referred to the fact that the estimated mass Mdyn
from Equation (6) corresponds to all matter in the system, while Mstell referred
to the tracer objects only. So that with a good approximation we estimate the total
masss to M4 between the two limits of Mdyn and Mstell which is 4 5  104 M .
The mean value of this less than the corresponding one given by Allen (1973) by
25%.

5. Summary

We applied an improved technique for estimating mass in the globular cluster M4.
In this technique the proper motion data for the cluster members have been used to
solve the Jeans equation under the area with radius 840 arcsec around the cluster
center. The center of M4 obtained in this work is in a good agreement with of
the previous investigators. The check of the ratio between the radial and tangential
dispersions indicated that the velocity distribution inside the cluster M4 is isotropic.
The dynamical mass estimated in M4 corresponds to all matter in the system of
cluster, Mdyn , is 4 5  104M for two distance estimations (1.75 and 2 kprsec).
While the stellar mass Mstell containing many low mass of the globular cluster
M4 is 4  104M . This value less the corresponding one given by Allen (1973)
by 25%. Thus the value 4 5  104 M is well a good representation to the mass
inside the range of the cluster M4.
The method has been adopted by Leonard and others is found to be powerful
tool for good mass estimates which gives more confidence to apply such method
to many other clusters to renew our sight to the mass containts of them.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Prof. Adel Sharf for helpful comments on the
manuscript and Dr. Osama Shalabia for his careful reading for the draft of this
work.

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.9

146 M.Y. AMIN ET AL.

References
Alcaino, G.: 1975, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 21, 5.
Alcaino, G. and Liller, W.: 1984, Astrophys. J. Suppl. 56, 19.
Alcaino, G., Liller, W. and Alvarado, F.: 1988, Astrophys. J. 330, 569.
Allen, C.W.: 1973, Astrophysical quantities, Univ. of London, The Athlone Press.
Cadworth, K.M. and Rees, R.: 1990, Astrophys. J. 99, 1491.
Capaccioli, M., Ortolani, S. and Piotto, G.: 1991, Astron. Astrophys. 244, 298.
Chandrasekhar, S.: 1947, Principles of Stellar Dynamics, 2nd edn., page 201.
Dixon, R.I. and Longmore, A.J.: 1993, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 265, 395.
Drukier, G.A., Fahlman, G.G., Richer, H.B. and Vandenberg, D.A.: 1988, Astrophys. J. 995, 1415.
Greenstein, J.L.: 1939, Astrophys. J. 90, 387.
Jones, B.F.: 1971, Astrophys. J. 76, 470.
Kanatos, I.N., Griffith, W.S., Dicken, R.J. and Penny, A.J.: 1995, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 272, 265.
Lee, S.W.: 1977, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 27, 367.
Lee, Y.W. and Fahlman, G.G. and Richer, H.B.: 1991, Astrophys. J. 366, 455.
Leonard, P.J.T. and Merritt, D.: 1989, Astrophys. J. 339, 195.
Leonard, P.J.T., Richer, H.B. and Fahlman, G.G.: 1992, Astrophys. J. 104, 6.
Lloyd, E.T.: 1977, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 178, 353.
Marie, M.: 1993, Astrophys. Space Sci. 201, 71.
McClure, R.B., Vandenberg, D.A., Bell, R.A. and Stetson, P.B.: 1987, Astrophys. J. 93, 1144.
McNamara, B.J. and Sekiguchi, K.: 1986, Astrophys. J. 310, 613.
Moskalev, V.G.: 1976, Soviet J. 19, 495.
Ogorednikou, K.F., Nezhinskij, E.M. and Sipkou, L.P.: 1978, Bull. Inst. Theor. Astron. 14, 284.
Penny, A.J., Labenow, A. and Dickens, R.J.: 1987, in: M. Azzapardi and F. Metteui (eds.), Interstellar
Evolution and Dynamics in the Outer Halo of the Galaxy, ESO Conference and Workshop
Proceeding No. 27, p. 401.
Peterson, C.J. and King, I.R.: 1975, Astron. J. 8, 427.
Peterson, R.C.: 1985, Astrophys. J. 289, 320.
Peterson, R.C. and Lathan, D.W.: 1986, Astrophys. J. 305, 645.
Phillips, J.P., Martinez, R.C., Sanchez, M.C. and Lazaro, V.C.: 1986, Astron. Astrophys. 161, 257
(PRMV86).
Plummer, H.C.: 1991, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 71, 460.
Richer, H.B. and Fahlman, G.G.: 1984, Astrophys. J. 277, 227.
Richer, H.B., Fahlman, G.G., Buonanmo, R., Fusi Pecci, F., Searie, L. and Thompson, I.B.: 1991,
Astrophys. J. 381, 147.
Sawyer, H.H.: 1973, Publ. David. Dumlap Ots. 3, No. 6.
Vandenberg, D.A. and Bell, R.A.: 1985, Astrophys. J. Suppl. 58, 561.
Van Leavwen: 1983, Ph.D. thesis Sterrewacht Leides.
Yoo, B.A.: 1987, The Messenger, No. 50, 33.
Yoo, B.A., Tang, J.H. and Zhang, C.S.: 1988, Acta Astron. Sin. 29, 243.

as232.tex; 25/09/1997; 8:39; v.5; p.10