Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Globular clusters in the Fornax galaxy cluster, from dwarf galaxies to the intracluster field

Understand

We present an analysis of Euclid observations of a 0.5 deg$^2$ field in the central region of the Fornax galaxy cluster that were acquired during the performance verification phase.

• With these data, we investigate the potential of Euclid for identifying GCs at 20 Mpc, and validate the search methods using artificial GCs and known GCs within the field from the literature.
• Our analysis of artificial GCs injected into the data shows that Euclid's data in $I_{\rm E}$ band is 80% complete at about $I_{\rm E} \sim 26.0$ mag ($M_{V\rm } \sim -5.0$ mag), and resolves GCs as small as $r_{\rm h} = 2.5$ pc.
• In the $I_{\rm E}$ band, we detect more than 95% of the known GCs from previous spectroscopic surveys and GC candidates of the ACS Fornax Cluster Survey, of which more than 80% are resolved.