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- Adamo, A., et al.
(författare)
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Revealing a ring-like cluster complex in a tidal tail of the starburst galaxy NGC 2146
- 2012
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 426:2, s. 1185-1194
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the discovery of a ring-like cluster complex in the starburst galaxy NGC?2146. The Ruby Ring, so named due to its appearance, shows a clear ring-like distribution of star clusters around a central object. It is located in one of the tidal streams that surround the galaxy. NGC?2146 is part of the Snapshot Hubble U-band Cluster Survey (SHUCS). The WFC3/F336W data have added critical information to the available archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging set of NGC?2146, allowing us to determine ages, masses and extinctions of the clusters in the Ruby Ring. These properties have then been used to investigate the formation of this extraordinary system. We find evidence of a spatial and temporal correlation between the central cluster and the clusters in the ring. The latter are about 4?Myr younger than the central cluster, which has an age of 7?Myr. This result is supported by the Ha emission which is strongly coincident with the ring, and weaker at the position of the central cluster. From the derived total Ha luminosity of the system, we constrain the star formation rate density to be quite high (SSFR = 0.47?M??yr-1?kpc-2). The Ruby Ring is the product of an intense and localized burst of star formation, similar to the extended cluster complexes observed in M?51 and the Antennae, but more impressive because it is quite isolated. The central cluster contains only 5 per cent of the total stellar mass in the clusters that are determined within the complex. The ring-like morphology, the age spread and the mass ratio support a triggering formation scenario for this complex. We discuss the formation of the Ruby Ring in a collect and collapse framework. The predictions made by this model agree quite well with the estimated bubble radius and expansion velocity produced by the feedback from the central cluster, making the Ruby Ring an interesting case of triggered star formation.
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| 2. |
- Konstantopoulos, I. S., et al.
(författare)
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THE SNAPSHOT HUBBLE U-BAND CLUSTER SURVEY (SHUCS). I. SURVEY DESCRIPTION AND FIRST APPLICATION TO THE MIXED STAR CLUSTER POPULATION OF NGC 4041
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astronomical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-6256 .- 1538-3881. ; 145:5, s. 137-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the Snapshot Hubble U-band Cluster Survey (SHUCS), a project aimed at characterizing the star cluster populations of 10 nearby galaxies (d < 23 Mpc, half within approximate to 12 Mpc) through new F336W (U-band equivalent) imaging from Wide Field Camera 3, and archival BVI-equivalent data with the Hubble Space Telescope. Completing the UBVI baseline reduces the age-extinction degeneracy of optical colors, thus enabling the measurement of reliable ages and masses for the thousands of clusters covered by our survey. The sample consists chiefly of face-on spiral galaxies at low inclination, in various degrees of isolation (isolated, in group, merging), and includes two active galactic nucleus hosts. This first paper outlines the survey itself, the observational datasets, the analysis methods, and presents a proof-of-concept study of the large-scale properties and star cluster population of NGC 4041, a massive SAbc galaxy at a distance of approximate to 23 Mpc, and part of a small grouping of six giant members. We resolve two structural components with distinct stellar populations, a morphology more akin to merging and interacting systems. We also find strong evidence of a truncated, Schechter-type mass function, and a similarly segmented luminosity function. These results indicate that binning must erase much of the substructure present in the mass and luminosity functions, and might account for the conflicting reports on the intrinsic shape of these functions in the literature. We also note a tidal feature in the outskirts of the galaxy in Galaxy Evolution Explorer UV imaging, and follow it up with a comprehensive multi-wavelength study of NGC 4041 and its parent group. We deduce a minor merger as a likely cause of its segmented structure and the observed pattern of a radially decreasing star formation rate. We propose that combining the study of star cluster populations with broadband metrics is not only advantageous, but often easily achievable thorough archival datasets.
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