J/AJ/169/115 Cluster parameters, masses, and radii from Gaia DR3 (Wei+, 2025)
Forest fire clustering: A novel tool for identifying star members of clusters.
Wei X., Chen J., Zhang Su, He F., Zhao Y., He X., Fang Y., Chen X.,
Yang H.
<Astron. J., 169, 115 (2025)>
=2025AJ....169..115W 2025AJ....169..115W
ADC_Keywords: Clusters, open; Photometry; Optical; Positional data
Keywords: Star clusters ; Open star clusters ; Astronomy data analysis
Abstract:
In the era of a data-driven landscape, the development of an efficient
and interpretable method has become a pivotal tool for robustly
identifying memberships of clusters. We present a novel cluster finder
approach called forest fire clustering (FFC). FFC combines iterative
label propagation with parallel Monte Carlo simulation to achieve
internal validation of clustering results. We use a Gaia DR3 catalog
comprising 322 random objects with distinct heliocentric distances
from approximately 0 to 5kpc, along with one ultrafaint dwarf galaxy
Bootes I (∼63kpc), as our validation sample. We compare the
performance of FFC with that of DBSCAN and HDBSCAN on this data set by
configuring them into the same processing pipeline for identifying
star members. Our results indicate that FFC outperforms the two others
in terms of the quality of clusters, particularly for clusters located
at distances greater than 2kpc. Additionally, FFC demonstrates robust
performance and efficiency. Based on the high-quality clusters derived
from FFC, we provide a detailed analysis of cluster properties. We
determine various cluster parameters, including age, mass, [Fe/H],
distance modulus, reddening, and binary fraction. Furthermore, dynamic
properties are reliably estimated through the fitting of radial
density profiles and theoretical models. This study suggests that FFC
is a suitable tool for identifying reliable memberships of stellar
systems, highlighting the discovery of more distant clusters and
enabling the identification of high-quality clusters to accurately
uncover cluster properties.
Description:
We selected an initial sample of 323 objects, comprising 322 clusters
and one dwarf galaxy (Bootes 1). More specifically, our initial sample
includes 317 open clusters or candidates, five globular clusters, and
one dwarf galaxy. Next, data sources of the objects were downloaded
from the Gaia DR3 archive with an angular radius of 2° from each
cluster center, using the astrometric and photometric observations and
information on the signal-to-noise ratio. In the Gaia DR3 data
(Gaia Collab+2023, I/355), this survey encompasses objects across a
magnitude range extending from G∼3mag at the brighter spectrum to
G∼21mag at the dimmer end. Additionally, more than 30 million sources
with GRV<14mag have been provided with average RV measurements, and
over four billion sources with photometric parameters (G, GBP,
GRP).
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table4.dat 206 281 Cluster parameters
table5.dat 169 281 Structural Parameters of clusters, along with
binary fractions and masses
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See also:
I/357 : Gaia DR3 Part 3. Non-single stars (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
J/A+A/376/441 : Absolute proper motions of 112 open clusters (Dias+, 2001)
J/A+A/485/303 : Radial velocities for 1309 stars & 166 OCl (Mermilliod+, 2008)
J/A+A/585/A101 : Milky Way global surv. of star clusters.V. (Kharchenko+, 2016)
J/MNRAS/478/1520 : Milky Way globular clusters data (Baumgardt+, 2018)
J/A+A/618/A93 : Gaia DR2 open clusters in the Milky Way (Cantat-Gaudin+, 2018)
J/A+A/618/A59 : GaiaDR2 confirmed new nearby open clust. (Castro-Ginard+, 2018)
J/A+A/616/A12 : Gaia DR2 sources in GC and dSph (Gaia Collaboration+, 2018)
J/MNRAS/480/5242 : (non-)existence of five sparse open clusters (Kos+, 2018)
J/A+A/627/A35 : New open clusters in Gal. anti-centre (Castro-Ginard+, 2019)
J/ApJS/245/32 : Newly identified star clusters in Gaia DR2 (Liu+, 2019)
J/A+A/633/A99 : GaiaDR2 open clust. in the Milky Way. II (Cantat-Gaudin+, 2020)
J/A+A/635/A45 : 570 new open clust. in the Galactic disc (Castro-Ginard+, 2020)
J/MNRAS/504/356 : Updated parameters of 1743 open clusters (Dias+, 2021)
J/A+A/646/A104 : Improving the open cluster census. I. (Hunt+, 2021)
J/MNRAS/505/5978 : Gaia EDR3 view on Galactic globular clust. (Vasiliev+, 2021)
J/A+A/661/A118 : 628 new open clust. found with OCfinder (Castro-Ginard+, 2022)
J/A+A/659/A59 : Structural param. of 389 local open clusters (Tarricq+, 2022)
J/AJ/164/54 : Gaia structural parameters of 256 open clusters (Zhong+, 2022)
J/ApJS/266/36 : Open star clusters within 5kpc in Gaia DR3 (Chi+, 2023)
J/A+A/673/A114 : Improving the open cluster census. II. (Hunt+, 2023)
J/ApJS/265/12 : Neighboring open clusters with Gaia DR3 (Qin+, 2023)
J/AJ/167/12 : Open cluster parameters with ANN (Cavallo+, 2024)
J/A+A/686/A42 : Improving the open cluster census. III. (Hunt+, 2024)
J/A+A/684/A205 : Identification of globular cluster escaped stars (Xu+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 18 A18 --- ID Identifier
20 A1 --- Flag This target is a dwarf galaxy
22- 34 F13.9 deg RAdeg Right Ascension, median cluster, Gaia DR3
(I/355), ICRS at Epoch=2016.0
36- 48 F13.9 deg DEdeg Declination, median cluster, Gaia DR3
(I/355), ICRS at Epoch=2016.0
50- 62 F13.9 mas/yr pmRA [-36/23] Median cluster Gaia DR3 (I/355)
proper motion in RA
64- 76 F13.9 mas/yr pmDE [-45.5/15.4] Median cluster Gaia DR3 (I/355)
proper motion in Dec.
78- 89 F12.9 mas plx [-0.034/7.4] Median cluster Gaia DR3 (I/355)
parallax
91- 102 F12.9 [-] [Fe/H] [-2/0.5] Cluster Metallicity
104- 108 F5.3 [-] e_[Fe/H] [0.125] Uncertainty in [Fe/H] (always 0.125)
110- 121 F12.9 [yr] logAge [6.4/10.2] Cluster age
123- 133 F11.9 [yr] e_logAge [0.16/0.27] Uncertainty in logAge
135- 146 F12.9 mag m-M [5.7/19.3] Cluster distance modulus
148- 158 F11.9 mag e_m-M [0.13/0.45] Uncertainty in m-M
160- 170 F11.9 mag E(BP-RP) [1e-3/1.94] Cluster reddening
172- 182 F11.9 mag e_E(BP-RP) [6e-5/0.12] Uncertainty in E (BP-RP)
184- 194 F11.9 mag AVmag [2e-3/4.71] Cluster extinction in the V band
196- 206 F11.9 mag e_AVmag [1e-4/0.29] Uncertainty in AVmag
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 18 A18 --- ID Identifier
20- 32 F13.9 pc Rc [0.79/168.4]? Core radius (1)
34- 45 F12.9 pc e_Rc [0.01/23]? Uncertainty in Rc (1)
47- 60 F14.9 pc Rt [1.8/1505]? Tidal radius (1)
62- 75 F14.9 pc e_Rt [0.05/2020]? Uncertainty in Rt (1)
77- 89 F13.9 pc R50Mem [0.6/142] Radius containing half of cluster
members
91- 102 F12.9 pc R50Mass [0.9/29.1]? Half-mass radius (2)
104- 115 F12.9 pc RJ [4.5/31.2]? Jacobi Radius (2)
117- 127 F11.9 pc e_RJ [0.29/2.1]? Uncertainty in RJ (2)
129- 133 I5 Msun Mass [56/12122]? Total mass of the cluster, solar
units (2)
135- 138 I4 Msun e_Mass [11/2424]? Uncertainty in Mass (2)
140- 143 F4.2 --- fbin [0.1/0.8]? Binary fraction (2)
145- 157 F13.9 Myr Trlx [1.9/435.1]? Relaxation time (2)
159- 169 F11.9 Myr e_Trlx [0.016/3.18]? Uncertainty in trlx (2)
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Note (1): Null values indicates that radial density profile failed to
fit due to the inapplicability of the RDP method.
Note (2): Null values correspond to values that cannot be determined
using our methods due to their faint magnitudes. This limitation
arises because Gaia's observational capacity extends only to 21mag.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Robin Leichtnam [CDS] 04-Dec-2025