In the lenticular galaxy NGC 1023 a third population of globular clusters ( GCs ) , called faint fuzzies ( FFs ) , was discovered next to the blue and red GC populations by Larsen & Brodie .
While these FFs have colors comparable to the red population , the new population is fainter , larger ( R _ { eff } > 7 pc ) and , most importantly , shows clear signs of co-rotation with the galactic disk of NGC 1023 .
We present N-body simulations verifying the hypothesis that these disk-associated FFs are related to the young massive cluster complexes ( CCs ) observed by Bastian et .
al in M51 , who discovered a mass-radius relation for these CCs .
Our models have an initial configuration based on the observations from M51 and are placed on various orbits in a galactic potential derived for NGC 1023 .
All computations end up with a stable object containing 10 to 60 % of the initial CC mass after an integration time of 5 Gyr .
A conversion to visual magnitudes demonstrates that the resulting objects cover exactly the observed range for FFs .
Moreover , the simulated objects show projected half-mass radii between 3.6 and 13.4 pc , in good agreement with the observed FF sizes .
We conclude that objects like the young massive CCs in M51 are likely progenitors of the FFs observed in NGC 1023 .