The formation of galaxies, the formation of old globular clusters and the link with high-redshift objects

In this paper, we explore the properties of old, metal-poor globular clusters in galaxies. We investigate whether their properties are related to the properties of their host galaxies, and whether we can constrain their formation. The main result is that the mean metallicities of old GC: systems are found to lie in a narrow range -1.7 < [Fe/H] < -1.1 (80 % of the population). Moreover, no correlations are found between the mean metallicities and other galaxy properties which implies a GC formation independent of the host galaxies. Further, we try to identify the sites of old, metal-poor GC formation, by comparison with currently known high redshift objects. We find that the metallicities of damped Ly alpha systems in the redshift range 1.6 < z < 4 are consistent with our GC metallicities, which suggests that these high-density neutral gas objects may be the progenitor of the old, metal-poor globular clusters.