J/MNRAS/436/136     Ages and masses of LMC clusters           (de Grijs+, 2013)

No compelling evidence of significant early star cluster disruption in the Large Magellanic Cloud. de Grijs R., Goodwin S.P., Anders P. <Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 436, 136-149 (2013)> =2013MNRAS.436..136D 2013MNRAS.436..136D
ADC_Keywords: Magellanic Clouds ; Associations, stellar Keywords: galaxies: evolution - galaxies: individual: Large Magellanic Cloud - Magellanic Clouds; galaxies: star clusters: general Abstract: Whether or not the rich star cluster population in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is affected by significant disruption during the first few x108yr of its evolution is an open question and the subject of significant current debate. Here, we revisit the problem, adopting a homogeneous data set of broad-band imaging observations. We base our analysis mainly on two sets of self-consistently determined LMC cluster ages and masses, one using standard modelling and one which takes into account the effects of stochasticity in the clusters' stellar mass functions. On their own, the results based on any of the three complementary analysis approaches applied here are merely indicative of the physical conditions governing the cluster population. However, the combination of our results from all three different diagnostics leaves little room for any conclusion other than that the optically selected LMC star cluster population exhibits no compelling evidence of significant disruption - for clusters with masses, Mcl, of log(Mcl/M)≳3.0-3.5 - between the age ranges of [3-10 and 30-100]Myr, either 'infant mortality' or otherwise. In fact, there is no evidence of any destruction beyond that expected from simple models just including stellar dynamics and stellar evolution for ages up to 1Gyr. It seems, therefore, that the difference in environmental conditions in the Magellanic Clouds on the one hand and significantly more massive galaxies on the other may be the key to understanding the apparent variations in cluster disruption behaviour at early times. Description: We specifically focused on the catalogue of Glatt, Grebel & Koch (2010, Cat. J/A+A/571/A50), who compiled data of 1193 populous LMC clusters with ages of up to 1 Gyr based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive LMC object catalogue of Bica et al. (2008, Cat. J/MNRAS/389/678). Glatt et al. (2010, Cat. J/A+A/571/A50) used the optical broad-band photometry from the Magellanic Clouds Photometric Survey (MCPS; Zaritsky et al., 2004, Cat. J/AJ/128/1606) to construct colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) and subsequently determined ages for their entire sample based on isochrone fits. File Summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FileName Lrecl Records Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReadMe 80 . This file table1.dat 96 747 LMC cluster positions and derived parameters -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: J/AJ/128/1606 : MCPS: the LMC (Zaritsky+, 2004) J/MNRAS/389/678 : Extended objects in Magellanic Clouds (Bica+, 2008) J/A+A/517/A50 : Young SMC/LMC star clusters ages + luminosities (Glatt+ 2010) Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 2 I2 h RAh Hour of Right Ascension (J2000) 4- 5 I2 min RAm Minute of Right Ascension (J2000) 7- 11 F5.2 s RAs Second of Right Ascension (J2000) 13 A1 --- DE- Sign of the Declination (J2000) 14- 15 I2 deg DEd Degree of Declination (J2000) 17- 18 I2 arcmin DEm Arcminute of Declination (J2000) 20- 24 F5.2 arcsec DEs Arcsecond of Declination (J2000) 26- 31 F6.3 mag VMAG [-9.8/-1.6] Integrated absolute V-band magnitude 33- 38 F6.3 [yr] logAg.m log of the minimum age 40- 45 F6.3 [yr] logAg.B log of the best age 47- 52 F6.3 [yr] logAg.M log of the maximum age 54- 58 F5.3 [Msun] logM.m log of the minimum mass 60- 64 F5.3 [Msun] logM.B log of the best mass 66- 70 F5.3 [Msun] logM.M log of the maximum mass 72- 96 A25 --- Name Cluster name(s) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History: From electronic version of the journal
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 19-Oct-2014
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