Se. Zepf et al., THE RICHNESS OF THE GLOBULAR-CLUSTER SYSTEM OF NGC-3923 - CLUES TO ELLIPTIC GALAXY FORMATION, The Astrophysical journal, 435(2), 1994, pp. 120000117-120000120
We present new data on the globular cluster system of the elliptical g
alaxy NGC 3923 which show that it has the most globular clusters per u
nit luminosity of any noncluster elliptical yet observed, with S-N = 6
.4 +/- 1.4. NGC 3923 is also among the brightest ellipticals outside o
f a galaxy cluster for which the number of globular clusters has been
determined. Our observation of a large number of clusters per unit lum
inosity (high S-N-value) for a bright elliptical in a sparse environme
nt is consistent with the suggestion of Djorgovski and Santiago that t
he number of globular clusters is a power-law function of the luminosi
ty with an exponent greater than 1. We relate this higher specific fre
quency of globular clusters in more luminous galaxies to other observa
tions which indicate that the physical conditions within elliptical ga
laxies at the time of their formation were dependent on galaxy mass.