A newly-discovered young massive star cluster at the end of the Galactic Bar
Abstract
We present a near-infrared study of the candidate star cluster Mercer 81, located at the centre of the G338.4+0.1 HII region, and close to the TeV gamma-ray source HESS 1640-465. Using HST/NICMOS imaging and VLT/ISAAC spectroscopy we have detected a compact and highly extincted cluster of stars, though the bright stars in the centre of the field are in fact foreground objects. The cluster contains nine stars with strong Paschen-alpha emission, one of which we identify as a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star, as well as an A-type supergiant. The line-of-sight extinction is very large, AV 45, illustrating the challenges of locating young star clusters in the Galactic Plane. From a quantitative analysis of the WR star we argue for a cluster age of 3.7+0.4-0.5\,Myr, and, assuming that all emission-line stars are WRs, a cluster mass of 104. A kinematic analysis of the cluster's surrounding HII-region shows that the cluster is located in the Galactic disk at a distance of 112\,kpc. This places the cluster close to where the far end of the Bar intersects the Norma spiral arm. This cluster, as well as the nearby cluster [DBS2003]179, represent the first detections of active star cluster formation at this side of the Bar, in contrast to the near side which is well known to have recently undergone a 106\ starburst episode.