The Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope has been used to obtain deep high-resolution images of the giant early-type galaxy NGC 1316 which is an obvious merger remnant .
These observations supersede previous , shallower observations which revealed the presence of a population of metal-rich globular clusters of intermediate age ( \sim 3 Gyr ) .
We detect a total of 1496 cluster candidates , almost 4 times as many as from the previous WFPC2 images .
We confirm the bimodality of the color distribution of clusters , even in V - I , with peak colors 0.93 and 1.06 .
The large number of detected clusters allows us to evaluate the globular cluster luminosity functions as a function of galactocentric radius .
We find that the luminosity function of the inner 50 % of the intermediate-age , metal-rich ( ‘ red ’ ) population of clusters differs markedly from that of the outer 50 % .
In particular , the luminosity function of the inner 50 % of the red clusters shows a clear flattening consistent with a turnover that is about 1.0 mag fainter than the turnover of the blue clusters .
This constitutes the first direct evidence that metal-rich cluster populations formed during major mergers of gas-rich galaxies can evolve dynamically ( through disruption processes ) into the red , metal-rich cluster populations that are ubiquitous in ‘ normal ’ giant ellipticals .