The Mass Function of Young Star Clusters in the Antennae
U. Fritze-v. Alvensleben
Abstract
The Antennae is a pair of late type spirals in the course of merging. The interaction triggered an ongoing strong burst of star formation that also produced a large number of Young Star Clusters (YSCs), many of which seem to be young Globular Clusters (GCs). The observed Luminosity Function of the YSC system is a power-law. We use evolutionary synthesis models for star clusters in comparison with HST WFPC observations of the YSC system in the Antennae to analyse the mass function of this 2 · 108 yr young star cluster system. Properly accounting for age spread effects by individually age-dating the YSCs we find that the intrinsic Mass Function (MF) is log-normal in shape and in intriguing agreement with the MF of old GC systems. We discuss this MF in the context of cluster formation and dynamical effects in the tidal field of the parent galaxy and speculate about its future evolution.
Create a lesson
Related papers
On binary pulsars and the force of gravity
Davor Palle
Tidal torques. A critical review of some techniques
Michael Efroimsky, James G. Williams
Dynamics of a Spherical Accretion Shock with Neutrino Heating and Alpha-Particle Recombination
Rodrigo Fernández, Christopher Thompson
Asymptotically FRW black holes
J. T. Firouzjaee, Reza Mansouri
Reaction of Accretion Disks to Abrupt Mass Loss During Binary Black Hole Merger
Sean M. O'Neill, M. Coleman Miller, Tamara Bogdanovic et al.
A Gamma-Ray Burst/Pulsar for Cosmic-Ray Positrons with a Dark Matter-like Spectrum
Kunihito Ioka