PAH Marks the Spot: Digging for Buried Clusters in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Graham, Gabrielle B. Dale, Daniel A. Smith, Chase L. Brann, Elisabeth Conder, Kaycee D. Crowe, Samuel Dhileepkumar, Sumitra Imming, Nicole A. Mendez, Emilio Pleska, Zachary Sako, Kelsey Amiri, Amirnezam Barnes, Ashley T. Boquien, Médéric Chandar, Rupali Chown, Ryan Gnedin, Oleg Y. Grasha, Kathryn Hannon, Stephen Hassani, Hamid Indebetouw, Rémy Kim, Hwihyun Kim, Jaeyeon Koziol, Hannah Larson, Kirsten L. Lee, Janice C. Leroy, Adam K. Oakes, Elias K. Rodríguez, M. Jimena Rosolowsky, Erik Sandstrom, Karin Schinnerer, Eva Sutter, Jessica Thilker, David A. Ubeda, Leonardo Whitmore, Bradley C. Weinbeck, Tony D. Williams, Thomas G. Wofford, Aida Méndez-Delgado, J. Eduardo Tian, Qiushi Chris Collaboration, the PHANGS |
| author_facet | Graham, Gabrielle B. Dale, Daniel A. Smith, Chase L. Brann, Elisabeth Conder, Kaycee D. Crowe, Samuel Dhileepkumar, Sumitra Imming, Nicole A. Mendez, Emilio Pleska, Zachary Sako, Kelsey Amiri, Amirnezam Barnes, Ashley T. Boquien, Médéric Chandar, Rupali Chown, Ryan Gnedin, Oleg Y. Grasha, Kathryn Hannon, Stephen Hassani, Hamid Indebetouw, Rémy Kim, Hwihyun Kim, Jaeyeon Koziol, Hannah Larson, Kirsten L. Lee, Janice C. Leroy, Adam K. Oakes, Elias K. Rodríguez, M. Jimena Rosolowsky, Erik Sandstrom, Karin Schinnerer, Eva Sutter, Jessica Thilker, David A. Ubeda, Leonardo Whitmore, Bradley C. Weinbeck, Tony D. Williams, Thomas G. Wofford, Aida Méndez-Delgado, J. Eduardo Tian, Qiushi Chris Collaboration, the PHANGS |
| contents | The joint capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and JWST allow for an unparalleled look at the early lives of star clusters at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. We present here a multiband analysis of embedded young stellar clusters in 11 nearby, star-forming galaxies, using the PHANGS-JWST and PHANGS-HST datasets. We use the Zooniverse citizen science platform to conduct an initial by-eye search for embedded clusters in near-UV/optical/near-infrared images that trace stellar continuum emission, the Paschen$α$ and H$α$ recombination lines, and the 3.3 $μ$m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon feature and its underlying continuum. With this approach, we identify 292 embedded cluster candidates for which we characterize their ages, masses, and levels of line-of-sight extinction by comparing the photometric data to predictions from stellar population models. The embedded cluster candidates have a median age of 4.5 Myr and an average line-of-sight extinction $\left< A_V \right> = 6.0$ mag. We determine lower limits on source stellar masses, resulting in a median stellar mass of $10^3$ $M_{\odot}$. We use this sample of embedded cluster candidates to train multiple convolutional neural network models to carry out deep transfer learning-based searches for embedded clusters. With the aim of optimizing models for future catalog production, we compare results for four variations of training data using two neural networks. Confusion matrices for all eight model configurations, as well as inter-model identification trends, are presented. With refinement of the training sample, we determine that optimized models could serve as a pathway for future embedded cluster identification beyond our 11 galaxy sample. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_11920 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | PAH Marks the Spot: Digging for Buried Clusters in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies Graham, Gabrielle B. Dale, Daniel A. Smith, Chase L. Brann, Elisabeth Conder, Kaycee D. Crowe, Samuel Dhileepkumar, Sumitra Imming, Nicole A. Mendez, Emilio Pleska, Zachary Sako, Kelsey Amiri, Amirnezam Barnes, Ashley T. Boquien, Médéric Chandar, Rupali Chown, Ryan Gnedin, Oleg Y. Grasha, Kathryn Hannon, Stephen Hassani, Hamid Indebetouw, Rémy Kim, Hwihyun Kim, Jaeyeon Koziol, Hannah Larson, Kirsten L. Lee, Janice C. Leroy, Adam K. Oakes, Elias K. Rodríguez, M. Jimena Rosolowsky, Erik Sandstrom, Karin Schinnerer, Eva Sutter, Jessica Thilker, David A. Ubeda, Leonardo Whitmore, Bradley C. Weinbeck, Tony D. Williams, Thomas G. Wofford, Aida Méndez-Delgado, J. Eduardo Tian, Qiushi Chris Collaboration, the PHANGS Astrophysics of Galaxies The joint capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and JWST allow for an unparalleled look at the early lives of star clusters at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. We present here a multiband analysis of embedded young stellar clusters in 11 nearby, star-forming galaxies, using the PHANGS-JWST and PHANGS-HST datasets. We use the Zooniverse citizen science platform to conduct an initial by-eye search for embedded clusters in near-UV/optical/near-infrared images that trace stellar continuum emission, the Paschen$α$ and H$α$ recombination lines, and the 3.3 $μ$m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon feature and its underlying continuum. With this approach, we identify 292 embedded cluster candidates for which we characterize their ages, masses, and levels of line-of-sight extinction by comparing the photometric data to predictions from stellar population models. The embedded cluster candidates have a median age of 4.5 Myr and an average line-of-sight extinction $\left< A_V \right> = 6.0$ mag. We determine lower limits on source stellar masses, resulting in a median stellar mass of $10^3$ $M_{\odot}$. We use this sample of embedded cluster candidates to train multiple convolutional neural network models to carry out deep transfer learning-based searches for embedded clusters. With the aim of optimizing models for future catalog production, we compare results for four variations of training data using two neural networks. Confusion matrices for all eight model configurations, as well as inter-model identification trends, are presented. With refinement of the training sample, we determine that optimized models could serve as a pathway for future embedded cluster identification beyond our 11 galaxy sample. |
| title | PAH Marks the Spot: Digging for Buried Clusters in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11920 |