No Arabic abstract
We utilize the robust membership determination algorithm, ML-MOC, on the precise astrometric and deep photometric data from Gaia Early Data Release 3 within a region of radius 5$^{circ}$ around the center of the intermediate-age galactic open cluster NGC 752 to identify its member stars. We report the discovery of the tidal tails of NGC 752, extending out to $sim$35 pc on either side of its denser central region and following the cluster orbit. From comparison with PARSEC stellar isochrones, we obtain the mass function of the cluster with a slope, $chi=-1.26pm0.07$. The high negative value of $chi$ is indicative of a disintegrating cluster undergoing mass-segregation. $chi$ is more negative in the intra-tidal regions as compared to the outskirts of NGC 752. We estimate a present day mass of the cluster, M$rm_{C}=297pm10$ M$_{odot}$. Through mass-loss due to stellar evolution and tidal interactions, we further estimate that NGC 752 has lost nearly 95.2-98.5 % of its initial mass, $rm M_{i}~=~0.64~-2~times~10^{4}~M_{odot}$.
We present results on the extra-tidal features of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 7099, using deep gr photometry obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). We reached nearly 6 mag below the cluster Main Sequence (MS) turnoff, so that we dealt with the most suitable candidates to trace any stellar structure located beyond the cluster tidal radius. From star-by-star reddening corrected color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) we defined four adjacent strips along the MS, for which we built the respective stellar density maps, once the contamination by field stars was properly removed. The resulting field star cleaned stellar density maps show a short tidal tail and some scattered debris. Such extra-tidal features are hardly detected when much shallower Gaia DR2 data sets are used and the same CMD field star cleaning procedure is applied. Indeed, by using 2.5 magnitudes below the cluster MS turnoff as the faintest limit (G < 20.5 mag), cluster members turned out to be distributed within the clusters tidal radius, and some hints for field star density variations are found across a circle of radius 3.5deg centered on the cluster and with similar CMD features as cluster stars. The proper motion distribution of these stars is distinguishable from that of the cluster, with some superposition, which resembles that of stars located beyond 3.5deg from the cluster center.
Precision uvbyCaHbeta photometry of the nearby old open cluster, NGC 752, is presented. The mosaic of CCD fields covers an area ~42 on a side with internal precision at the 0.005 to 0.010 mag level for the majority of stars down to V~15. The CCD photometry is tied to the standard system using an extensive set of published photoelectric observations adopted as secondary standards within the cluster. Multicolor indices are used to eliminate as nonmembers a large fraction of the low probability proper-motion members near the faint end of the main sequence, while identifying 24 potential dwarf members between V=15.0 and 16.5, eight of which have been noted before from Vilnius photometry. From 68 highly probable F dwarf members, we derive a reddening estimate of E(b-y)= 0.025 +/- 0.003 (E(B-V) = 0.034 +/- 0.004), where the error includes the internal photometric uncertainty and the systematic error arising from the choice of the standard (b-y), Hbeta relation. With reddening fixed, [Fe/H] is derived from the F dwarf members using both m_1 and hk, leading to [Fe/H] = -0.071 +/-0.014 (sem) and -0.017 +/- 0.008 (sem), respectively. Taking the internal precision and possible systematics in the standard relations into account, [Fe/H] for NGC 752 becomes -0.03 +/-0.02. With the reddening and metallicity defined, we use the Victoria-Regina isochrones on the Stromgren system and find an excellent match for (m-M) = 8.30 +/- 0.05 and an age of 1.45 +/- 0.05 Gyr at the appropriate metallicity.
We report the discovery of tidal tails around the Galactic globular cluster NGC 7492, based on the Data Release 1 of the Pan-STARRS 1 survey. The tails were detected with a version of the matched filter technique applied to the $(g-r,r)$ and $(g-i,i)$ color-magnitude diagrams. Tidal tails emerging from the cluster extend at least $sim$3.5 degrees in the North-East to South-East direction, equivalent to $sim1.5$ kpc in projected length.
We present a photometric analysis of the rich star cluster population in the tidal tails of NGC 6872. We find star clusters with ages between 1 - 100 Myr distributed in the tidal tails, while the tails themselves have an age of less than 150 Myr. Most of the young massive ($10^{4} le M/M_{odot} le 10^{7}$) clusters are found in the outer regions of the galactic disk or the tidal tails. The mass distribution of the cluster population can be well described by power-law of the form $N(m) propto m^{-alpha}$, where $alpha = 1.85 pm 0.11$, in very good agreement with other young cluster populations found in a variety of different environments. We estimate the star formation rate for three separate regions of the galaxy, and find that the eastern tail is forming stars at $sim 2$ times the rate of the western tail and $sim 5$ times the rate of the main body of the galaxy. By comparing our observations with published N-body models of the fate of material in tidal tails in a galaxy cluster potential, we see that many of these young clusters will be lost into the intergalactic medium. We speculate that this mechanism may also be at work in larger galaxy clusters such as Fornax, and suggest that the so-called ultra-compact dwarf galaxies could be the most massive star clusters that have formed in the tidal tails of an ancient galactic merger.
We have developed an observing program using deep, multiband imaging to probe the chaotic regions of tidal tails in search of an underlying stellar population, using NGC 3256s 400 Myr twin tidal tails as a case study. These tails have different colours of $u - g = 1.05 pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.13 pm 0.07$ for NGC 3256W, and $u - g = 1.26 pm 0.07$ and $r - i = 0.26 pm 0.07$ for NGC 3256E, indicating different stellar populations. These colours correspond to simple stellar population ages of $288^{+11}_{-54}$ Myr and $841^{+125}_{-157}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E, respectively, suggesting NGC 3256Ws diffuse light is dominated by stars formed after the interaction, while light in NGC 3256E is primarily from stars that originated in the host galaxy. Using a mixed stellar population model, we break our diffuse light into two populations: one at 10 Gyr, representing stars pulled from the host galaxies, and a younger component, whose age is determined by fitting the model to the data. We find similar ages for the young populations of both tails, ($195^{-13}_{+0}$ and $170^{-70}_{+44}$ Myr for NGC 3256W and NGC 3256E, respectively), but a larger percentage of mass in the 10 Gyr population for NGC 3256E ($98^{+1}_{-3}%$ vs $90^{+5}_{-6}%$). Additionally, we detect 31 star cluster candidates in NGC 3256W and 19 in NGC 2356E, with median ages of 141 Myr and 91 Myr, respectively. NGC 3256E contains several young (< 10 Myr), low mass objects with strong nebular emission, indicating a small, recent burst of star formation.