ABSTRACT

We present multi-object spectroscopic observations of 23 globular cluster candidates (GCCs) in the prototypical megamaser galaxy NGC 4258, carried out with the OSIRIS instrument at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. The candidates have been selected based on the (u* - i') versus (i' - Ks) diagram, in the first application of the \uiks\ method to a spiral galaxy. In the spectroscopy presented here, 70% of the candidates are confirmed as globular clusters. Our results validate the efficiency of the \uiks\ method in the sparser GC systems of spirals, and given the downward correction to the total number of GCs, the agreement of the galaxy with the correlations between black hole mass, and total number and mass of GCs is actually improved. We find that the metal-poor GCs co-rotate with the HI disk, even at large galactocentric distances. The ratio of rotation to velocity dispersion V/sigma of the system is ~ 1, consistent with the highly turbulent, rotating disks at

z>=2 that constitute nowadays the favored environment for the formation

of globular clusters. This system could be a z = 0 relic of this process.