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Register a new userLuminosity Profiles of Resolved Young Massive Clusters
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Authors
Francois Schweizer
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Young massive clusters (YMCs) differ markedly from old globular clusters in featuring extended, rather than tidally truncated, envelopes. Their projected- luminosity profiles are well fit by Elson-Fall-Freeman (EFF) models with core radii of 0.3 pc < r_c < 8 pc and power-law envelopes of negative exponent 2 < gamma < 3.8. These envelopes form within the first few 10^6 yr and last ~10^8 to 10^9.5 yr, depending on the environment. Many young massive clusters show clumpy substructure that may accelerate their initial relaxation. The cores of Magellanic-Cloud clusters show universal expansion from r_c < 1 pc at birth to r_c = 2 - 3 pc after 10^8 yr, but then seem to evolve along two bifurcating branches in a r_c-log(age) diagram. The lower branch can be explained by mass-loss driven core expansion during the first 10^9 yr, followed by slow core contraction and the onset of core collapse due to evaporation. The upper branch, which shows continued core expansion proportional to logarithmic age, remains unexplained. There is strong evidence for rapid mass segregation in young clusters, yet little evidence for top-heavy IMFs or primordial mass segregation. Finally, YMCs show similar structure throughout the Local Group and as far away as we can resolve them (<~20 Mpc).
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In the last decade we have come to realize that the traditional classification of stellar clusters into open and globular clusters cannot be easily extended beyond the realm of the Milky Way, and that even for our Galaxy it is not fully valid. The main failure of the traditional classification is the existence of Massive Young Clusters (MYCs), which are massive like Globular Clusters (GCs) but also young like open clusters. We describe here the mass and age distributions of clusters in general with an emphasis on MYCs. We also discuss the issue of what constitutes a cluster and try to establish a general classification scheme.
We have retrieved multicolor WFPC2/HST data from the STScI archive for 27 nearby Massive (>= 3x10^4 M_Sun) Young (< 20 Myr) star Clusters (MYCs). The data represents the most-complete-to-date sample of clearly resolved MYCs. We have analyzed their structural properties and have found that they can be classified as either Super Star Clusters (SSCs) or as Scaled OB Associations (SOBAs). SSCs have a compact core possibly surrounded by a halo while SOBAs have no core. A morphological sequence can be established from SSCs with weak halos to SSCs with strong halos to SOBAs and we propose that this is linked to the original mass distribution of the parent giant molecular clouds. Our results indicate that a significant fraction of the stars in MYCs dissipate on timescales of 10 Gyr or less due to the extended character of some of the clusters. Also, SSCs with ages < 7 Myr have smaller cores on average than those with ages > 7 Myr, confirming predictions of numerical simulations with mass loss.
We introduce a method to relate a possible truncation of the star cluster mass function at the high mass end to the shape of the cluster luminosity function (LF). We compare the observed LFs of five galaxies containing young star clusters with synthetic cluster population models with varying initial conditions. The LF of the SMC, the LMC and NGC 5236 are characterized by a power-law behavior NdL~L^-a dL, with a mean exponent of <a> = 2.0 +/- 0.2. This can be explained by a cluster population formed with a constant cluster formation rate, in which the maximum cluster mass per logarithmic age bin is determined by the size-of-sample effect and therefore increases with log(age/yr). The LFs of NGC 6946 and M51 are better described by a double power-law distribution or a Schechter function. When a cluster population has a mass function that is truncated below the limit given by the size-of-sample effect, the total LF shows a bend at the magnitude of the maximum mass, with the age of the oldest cluster in the population, typically a few Gyr due to disruption. For NGC 6946 and M51 this implies a maximum mass of M_max = 5*10^5 M_sun. Faint-ward of the bend the LF has the same slope as the underlying initial cluster mass function and bright-ward of the bend it is steeper. This behavior can be well explained by our population model. We compare our results with the only other galaxy for which a bend in the LF has been observed, the ``Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038/4039). There the bend occurs brighter than in NGC 6946 and M51, corresponding to a maximum cluster mass of M_max = 2*10^6 M_sun (abridged).
Stars mostly form in groups consisting of a few dozen to several ten thousand members. For 30 years, theoretical models provide a basic concept of how such star clusters form and develop: they originate from the gas and dust of collapsing molecular clouds. The conversion from gas to stars being incomplete, the left over gas is expelled, leading to cluster expansion and stars becoming unbound. Observationally, a direct confirmation of this process has proved elusive, which is attributed to the diversity of the properties of forming clusters. Here we take into account that the true cluster masses and sizes are masked, initially by the surface density of the background and later by the still present unbound stars. Based on the recent observational finding that in a given star-forming region the star formation efficiency depends on the local density of the gas, we use an analytical approach combined with mbox{N-body simulations, to reveal} evolutionary tracks for young massive clusters covering the first 10 Myr. Just like the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is a measure for the evolution of stars, these tracks provide equivalent information for clusters. Like stars, massive clusters form and develop faster than their lower-mass counterparts, explaining why so few massive cluster progenitors are found.
We use integrated-light spectroscopic observations to measure metallicities and chemical abundances for two extragalactic young massive star clusters (NGC1313-379 and NGC1705-1). The spectra were obtained with the X-Shooter spectrograph on the ESO Very Large Telescope. We compute synthetic integrated-light spectra, based on colour-magnitude diagrams for the brightest stars in the clusters from Hubble Space Telescope photometry and theoretical isochrones. Furthermore, we test the uncertainties arising from the use of Colour Magnitude Diagram (CMD) +Isochrone method compared to an Isochrone-Only method. The abundances of the model spectra are iteratively adjusted until the best fit to the observations is obtained. In this work we mainly focus on the optical part of the spectra. We find metallicities of [Fe/H] = $-$0.84 $pm$ 0.07 and [Fe/H] = $-$0.78 $pm$ 0.10 for NGC1313-379 and NGC1705-1, respectively. We measure [$alpha$/Fe]=$+$0.06 $pm$ 0.11 for NGC1313-379 and a super-solar [$alpha$/Fe]=$+$0.32 $pm$ 0.12 for NGC1705-1. The roughly solar [$alpha$/Fe] ratio in NGC1313-379 resembles those for young stellar populations in the Milky Way (MW) and the Magellanic Clouds, whereas the enhanced [$alpha$/Fe] ratio in NGC1705-1 is similar to that found for the cluster NGC1569-B by previous studies. Such super-solar [$alpha$/Fe] ratios are also predicted by chemical evolution models that incorporate the bursty star formation histories of these dwarf galaxies. Furthermore, our $alpha$-element abundances agree with abundance measurements from H II regions in both galaxies. In general we derive Fe-peak abundances similar to those observed in the MW and Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) for both young massive clusters. For these elements, however, we recommend higher-resolution observations to improve the Fe-peak abundance measurements.
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