Globular cluster abundance patterns inherited from giant molecular clouds

Globular clusters exhibit large star-to-star variations and anticorrelations in their light element abundances that are commonly interpreted in terms of in-cluster self-enrichment, in which ejecta from early-forming cluster stars pollute the gas from which later stars form over millions of years. Yet proposed self-enrichment scenarios suffer from a severe mass-budget problem or invoke exotic stellar populations. Using cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations with a standard chemical enrichment model, we identify a population of giant molecular clouds whose internal abundance patterns reproduce several key globular cluster signatures: large light-element abundance spreads and nitrogen-oxygen anticorrelations at nearly constant iron abundance. These clouds form at the restart of star-formation activity after an earlier starburst, where previously ejected oxygen-rich gas collides with nitrogen-rich galactic gas, and are sites of dense star-cluster formation. In this picture, the chemical abundance patterns of globular clusters need not require extended in-cluster star formation, but can be inherited at birth from chemically structured interstellar gas shaped by the baryon cycle. Globular clusters therefore provide a fossil record of chemical enrichment and gas flows in high-redshift galaxies.