(Proposal ID) S12A-114

(PI) Chiba, Masashi

(Proposal Title)
Probing new globular clusters toward the direction of the Galactic bulge

(Abstract)
We propose to carry out high-resolution near-infrared imaging of candidate 
Galactic globular clusters (GCs) in each of the J and K bands using Subaru/IRCS
+AO. We target 12 candidate GCs in the crowded and reddened regions of the 
Galactic bulge, which were discovered and extracted from the recent extensive 
surveys such as 2MASS, GLIMPSE and VISTA catalogs. Our main goals are (1) to 
identify and resolve several GCs from candidate near-infrared targets, down to 
the magnitude of main-sequence turn off, and (2) to determine the basic 
properties of stellar population for each of newly identified GCs through its 
color-magnitude diagram, including multiplicity of stellar population, 
photometric metallicity, age distribution and internal structure. Our 
observation of these fossil populations will provide important clues to 
understanding formation and evolution of the GC system in the Galactic bulge 
and its association with the formation process of the bulge itself.