A Deep Optical Luminosity Function of NGC 6712 with the VLT: Evidence for Severe Tidal Disruption

Abstract

The VLT on Cerro Paranal was used to observe four fields located at 2.3' from the center of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 6712 in the V and R bands. The resulting color-magnitude diagram shows a well defined main sequence reaching down to the 5 sigma detection limit at V~25, R~23.5 or approximately 4 mag below the main sequence turn-off, the deepest obtained so far on this cluster. This yields a main sequence luminosity function that peaks at M_R~4.5 and drops down to the 50% completeness limit at M_R~8.5. Transformation to a mass function via the latest mass-luminosity relation appropriate to this object indicates that the peak of the luminosity function corresponds to ~0.75 Msolar, a value significantly higher than the ~0.25 Msolar measured for most other clusters observed so far. Since this object, in its Galactic orbit, penetrates very deeply into the Galactic bulge with perigalactic distance of ~0.3 kpc, this result is the first strong evidence that tidal forces have stripped this cluster of a substantial portion of its lower mass star population all the way down to its half-light radius and possibly beyond.

6 pages, 3 figures, to appear as a Letter in the special VLT issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics (March 1999)