Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21715206w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #152.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We use WFC3 observations of the nearby grand design spiral galaxy M83 to develop two independent methods for estimating the ages of young star clusters. The first method uses the physical extent and morphology of H-alpha emission to estimate the ages of clusters younger than 10 Myr. It is based on the simple premise that the gas in very young (< few Myr) clusters is largely coincident with the cluster stars, is in a small, ring-like structure surrounding the stars in slightly older clusters (i.e., 5 Myr), and is in larger ring-like bubbles for older clusters (i.e., 5 - 10 Myr). The second method is based on an observed relation between pixel-to-pixel flux variations within clusters and their ages. This method relies on the fact that the brightest individual stars in a cluster are most prominent at ages around 3 - 10 Myr, and fall below the detection limit (i.e., Mv < -3.5) for ages older than 100 Myr old. The older clusters therefore have a smoother appearance and smaller pixel-to-pixel variations. We compare age estimates of clusters in M83 derived from these two techniques with estimates determined from fitting UBVIHalpha observations with model predictions, and find good agreement at the 90 % level, with an scatter of 0.2 dex in log age for young clusters (< 10 Myr) and 0.5 dex for older (> 10 Myr) clusters.
This project is based on Early Release Science observations made by the WFC3 Scientific Oversight Committee. We are grateful to the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute for awarding Director's Discretionary time for this program. Support for program #11360 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.
Chandar Rupali
Kaleida Catherine
Kim Hungsoo
O'Connell Robert
SOC WFC3
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