Star Cluster Demographics: A General Framework and Application to the Antennae Galaxies

Computer Science – Graphics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We present a framework for understanding the demographics of star cluster systems, and develop a toy model which incorporates a universal initial power law mass function, selected formation histories, selected disruption laws, and a convolution with common artifacts and selection effects found in observational data. A wide variety of observations can be explained by this simple model, including the observed correlation between the brightest young cluster in a galaxy and the total number of young clusters. A model of the Antennae galaxies is developed and compared with the observational data. An important component of our model is the use of a two-stage disruption process, with a very high ``infant mortality'' rate for the clusters with ages less than 10**8 yrs (i.e., roughly 80 - 90% are lost each factor of ten in time, independent of mass), and two-body relaxation, which becomes the dominant disruption mechanism at older ages, preferentially removing the lower mass clusters. We note that a 80 - 90 % infant mortality rate for each factor of ten in time is consistent with all measured young cluster populations, including those in the Antennae, Small Magellanic Cloud, and the Milky Way.

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