Clusters, Clumps, Dust, & Gas (CCDG) in NGC1614: Bench-marking Cluster Demographics in Extreme Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Caputo, Miranda, Chandar, Rupali, Mok, Angus, Linden, Sean, Goudfrooij, Paul, Whitmore, Bradley C.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Caputo, Miranda
Chandar, Rupali
Mok, Angus
Linden, Sean
Goudfrooij, Paul
Whitmore, Bradley C.
author_facet Caputo, Miranda
Chandar, Rupali
Mok, Angus
Linden, Sean
Goudfrooij, Paul
Whitmore, Bradley C.
contents Observations of young star clusters in a variety of galaxies have been used to constrain basic properties related to star-formation, such as the fraction of stars found in clusters (Gam) and the shape of the cluster mass function. However, the results can depend heavily on the reliability of the cluster age-dating process and other assumptions. One of the biggest challenges for successful age-dating lies in breaking the age-reddening degeneracy, where older, dust-free clusters and young, reddened clusters can have similar broad-band colors. While this degeneracy affects cluster populations in all galaxies, it is particularly challenging in dusty, extreme star-forming environments systems. We study the cluster demographics in the luminous infrared galaxy NGC1614 using Hubble imaging taken in 8 optical-NIR passbands. For age-dating, we adopt a spectral energy distribution fitting process that limits the maximum allowed reddening by region, and includes Ha photometry directly. We find that without these assumptions, essentially all clusters in the dust-free UV-bright arm which should have ages 50-250Myr are incorrectly assigned ages younger than 10Myr. We find this method greatly reduces the number of clusters in the youngest (tau<10Myrs) age bin and shows a fairly uniform distribution of massive clusters, the most massive being few10^7M. A maximum likelihood fit shows that the cluster mass function is well fitted by a power-law with an index -1.8, with no statistically significant high-mass cutoff. We calculate the fraction of stars born in clusters to be Gam1-10=22.4+_5.7%. The fraction of stars in clusters decreases quickly over time, with Gam10-100= 4.5+_1.1% and Gam100-400=1.7+_0.4%, suggesting that clusters dissolve rapidly over the first ~0.5Gyr. The decreasing fraction of stars in clusters is consistent with the declining shape observed for the cluster age distribution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_02836
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Clusters, Clumps, Dust, & Gas (CCDG) in NGC1614: Bench-marking Cluster Demographics in Extreme Systems
Caputo, Miranda
Chandar, Rupali
Mok, Angus
Linden, Sean
Goudfrooij, Paul
Whitmore, Bradley C.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Observations of young star clusters in a variety of galaxies have been used to constrain basic properties related to star-formation, such as the fraction of stars found in clusters (Gam) and the shape of the cluster mass function. However, the results can depend heavily on the reliability of the cluster age-dating process and other assumptions. One of the biggest challenges for successful age-dating lies in breaking the age-reddening degeneracy, where older, dust-free clusters and young, reddened clusters can have similar broad-band colors. While this degeneracy affects cluster populations in all galaxies, it is particularly challenging in dusty, extreme star-forming environments systems. We study the cluster demographics in the luminous infrared galaxy NGC1614 using Hubble imaging taken in 8 optical-NIR passbands. For age-dating, we adopt a spectral energy distribution fitting process that limits the maximum allowed reddening by region, and includes Ha photometry directly. We find that without these assumptions, essentially all clusters in the dust-free UV-bright arm which should have ages 50-250Myr are incorrectly assigned ages younger than 10Myr. We find this method greatly reduces the number of clusters in the youngest (tau<10Myrs) age bin and shows a fairly uniform distribution of massive clusters, the most massive being few10^7M. A maximum likelihood fit shows that the cluster mass function is well fitted by a power-law with an index -1.8, with no statistically significant high-mass cutoff. We calculate the fraction of stars born in clusters to be Gam1-10=22.4+_5.7%. The fraction of stars in clusters decreases quickly over time, with Gam10-100= 4.5+_1.1% and Gam100-400=1.7+_0.4%, suggesting that clusters dissolve rapidly over the first ~0.5Gyr. The decreasing fraction of stars in clusters is consistent with the declining shape observed for the cluster age distribution.
title Clusters, Clumps, Dust, & Gas (CCDG) in NGC1614: Bench-marking Cluster Demographics in Extreme Systems
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02836