ACS Photometry of Extended, Luminous Globular Clusters in the Outskirts of M31

A new population of extended, luminous globular clusters has recently been discovered in the outskirts of M31. These objects have luminosities typical of classical globular clusters, but much larger half-light radii. We report the first results from deep ACS imaging of four such clusters, one of which is a newly discovered example lying at a projected distance of ~60 kpc from M31. Our F606W, F814W color-magnitude diagrams extend ~3 mag below the horizontal branch level, and clearly demonstrate, for the first time, that all four clusters are composed of >~10 Gyr old, metal-poor stellar populations. No evidence for multiple populations is observed. From a comparison with Galactic globular cluster fiducials we estimate metallicities in the range -2.2