The Compact Cluster Population of the Large Magellenic Cloud

Details The Compact Cluster Population of the Large Magellenic Cloud The Compact Cluster Population of the Large Magellenic Cloud

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aas...20114204d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society Meeting 201, #142.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.568

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Scientific paper

Using images obtained by Phil Massey from the CTIO Schmidt telescope, we obtained integrated U, B, V, and R photometry for 830 compact clusters in the Large Magellenic Cloud (LMC). Using the colors (B-V), (U-B), and (V-R) and cluster color evolutionary models we were able to determine approximate ages confidently for 464 clusters. Also from the evolutionary models we predicted what the integrated magnitude MV of the cluster was or would be at an age of 10 Myr (MV,10), which should be proportional to the cluster's mass. We constructed a ``mass function" using the fiducial luminosities for these 464 clusters plus the young super star cluster R136 and found that it obeys a power law with a slope of 1.49+/-0.15. This slope is in close agreement with both the slope found for HII regions in other irregular galaxies and molecular clouds in the Milky Way. This implies that the mass of a cluster is determined by the mass fo the cloud from which it forms. Six new super star clusters (MV,10 < -10.5) were identified, and these most massive of clusters were found to be neither rarer nor more abundant than predicted by the mass function power law, meaning the formation of star clusters as massive as the Milky Way's globular clusters is part of the normal star formation processes of the LMC. However, our data also indicate that the LMC may not behave like most irregular galaxies when forming stars.
This work was supported by NSF grant NSF-99-88007 to Northern Arizona University's REU.

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