INSTANTANEOUS STARBURST OF THE MASSIVE CLUSTERS WESTERLUND 1 AND NGC 3603 YC

We present a new method to determine the age spread of resolved stellar populations in a starburst cluster. The method relies on a two-step process. In the first step, kinematic members of the cluster are identified based on multi-epoch astrometric monitoring. In the second step, a Bayesian analysis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astrophysical journal. Letters 2012-05, Vol.750 (2), p.1-5
Main Authors: Kudryavtseva, Natalia, Brandner, Wolfgang, Gennaro, Mario, Rochau, Boyke, Stolte, Andrea, Andersen, Morten, Da Rio, Nicola, Henning, Thomas, TOGNELLI, EMANUELE, Hogg, David, Clark, Simon, Waters, Rens
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age determination
Angular resolution
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
Clusters
DIAGRAMS
Hubble Space Telescope
MONITORING
NEAR INFRARED RADIATION
OPTICS
PHOTOMETRY
RESOLUTION
SPACE
Spreads
STAR CLUSTERS
STAR EVOLUTION
Star formation
STARS
TELESCOPES
VISIBLE RADIATION
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Summary:We present a new method to determine the age spread of resolved stellar populations in a starburst cluster. The method relies on a two-step process. In the first step, kinematic members of the cluster are identified based on multi-epoch astrometric monitoring. In the second step, a Bayesian analysis is carried out, comparing the observed photometric sequence of cluster members with sets of theoretical isochrones. When applying this methodology to optical and near-infrared high angular resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and adaptive optics observations of the ~5 Myr old starburst cluster Westerlund 1 and ~2 Myr old starburst cluster NGC 3603 YC, we derive upper limits for the age spreads of 0.4 and 0.1 Myr, respectively. The results strongly suggest that star formation in these starburst clusters happened almost instantaneously.
ISSN:2041-8205
2041-8213
DOI:10.1088/2041-8205/750/2/L44