The Cluster Formation Function in Galaxies

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The cluster formation function, which is the distribution of initial masses and absolute magnitudes of star clusters over a large range of conditions, is a somewhat neglected subject, in spite of its importance to our ideas of the cluster formation mechanism. Infrared and radio wavelength studies of cluster formation give relevant information about the masses of pre-cluster assemblies, but the mass distribution of resulting stable clusters over a significant mass range is known only for the Milky Way Galaxy.
We have determined the cluster formation function for three additional galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds and M31, basing our analysis on recent surveys of clusters in those galaxies. Our deepest data are for M31’s disk clusters, for which there is now a census of clusters to faint limits, to integrated absolute magnitudes of -2 in V. The formation function for these data is remarkably linear in the (logN)/M(V) plane, when we take into account the fading of the clusters and the detection efficiency of the survey. A similar result is found for the Magellanic Cloud clusters, although available searches are less complete for low cluster masses. We find that the slope of the formation function varies from galaxy to galaxy, possibly depending on a galaxy’s Hubble type.

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