Ages of LMC Star Clusters from Their Integrated Properties

Ages of LMC Star Clusters from Their Integrated Properties
Author: Randa Asa'd
Publisher:
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

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Star Clusters are the building blocks of galaxies. Determining their ages gives us information about the formation history of their hosting galaxies. For far-away galaxies, star clusters are not resolved. Only their integrated properties can be observed. Both integrated photometry and integrated spectra have been used as age indicators of stellar clusters. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a perfect galaxy to test these methods of age determination, because its clusters are close enough to see their individual stars, but also far enough away so that each cluster can be observed as a whole. This work first shows that the traditional methods of using the integrated broad-band photometry for age determination are highly inaccurate. This is attributed primarily to two things. First, the UBV integrated broad-band aging methods require matching a cluster with an expected model prediction of the cluster colors as a function of age. The biggest problem we find is the stellar clusters in our sample do not typically lie on the model line based on their known age and extinction. That is to say, real cluster colors often do not match the model colors and can be found some distance from expected model values. A second issue, which has been previously documented in numerous studies, is the strong degeneracy between age and extinction in the UBV color-color plane. Certainly, providing more photometric bands will reduce degeneracy between age and reddening. Better yet, if extinction can be independently determined, we show that ages from methods based on integrated broad-band colors will more closely match those obtained from more accurate methods based on stellar photometry. But the underlying issue remains. Simple stellar population models often do not accurately represent the colors of real stellar clusters due to the incomplete and stochastic sampling of the stellar mass function in low and moderate mass stellar clusters. On the other hand, integrated spectra provide better age predictions than broad-band photometry in the wavelength range 3626' 6248 A when compared with high resolution computational models. I obtained the integrated spectra of 20 clusters that didn't have integrated spectra in the optical range, or they have never been observed before. Using ths sample and 7 other clusters from the literature I show that the statistical Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test can better find the closest match between the observed spectrum and theoretical model than the traditional Chi squared. Finally, I present a new software routine that efficiently predicts the age of a star cluster given its optical integrated spectrum compared to spectra generated by computational models.

Astrophysical Ages and Dating Methods

Astrophysical Ages and Dating Methods
Author: Elisabeth Vangioni-Flam
Publisher: Atlantica Séguier Frontières
Total Pages: 528
Release: 1990
Genre: Astrophysics
ISBN: 9782863320693

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The Magellanic System (IAU S256)

The Magellanic System (IAU S256)
Author: International Astronomical Union. Symposium
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2009-04-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780521889872

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This volume presents the most complete and up-to-date accounts of our understanding of the Magellanic Clouds and the astrophysical processes within them. Observations of these nearby dwarf galaxies continue to advance, calibrate and challenge our knowledge of the cosmos. They are rich in gas, they have been actively forming stars throughout their history, and they display a wealth of dynamical features. Poor in metals, they serve as a stepping stone towards understanding the high-redshift Universe. In IAU Symposium 256, scientists from vastly different fields of research discuss galactic dynamics, the physics of the interstellar medium and star formation, and the fundamental properties and evolution of stars. New insight was gained by crossing the traditional boundaries of these fields, placing the findings in the context of the structure and evolution of this interacting pair of galaxies uniquely available to our ever more powerful telescopes and computational machinery.

Literature 1988, Part 1

Literature 1988, Part 1
Author: U. Esser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1266
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3662123649

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From the reviews: "Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts has appeared in semi-annual volumes since 1969 and it has already become one of the fundamental publications in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and neighbouring sciences. It is the most important English-language abstracting journal in the mentioned branches. ...The abstracts are classified under more than a hundred subject categories, thus permitting a quick survey of the whole extended material. The AAA is a valuable and important publication for all students and scientists working in the fields of astronomy and related sciences. As such it represents a necessary ingredient of any astronomical library all over the world." Space Science Reviews#1 "Dividing the whole field plus related subjects into 108 categories, each work is numbered and most are accompanied by brief abstracts. Fairly comprehensive cross-referencing links relevant papers to more than one category, and exhaustive author and subject indices are to be found at the back, making the catalogues easy to use. The series appears to be so complete in its coverage and always less than a year out of date that I shall certainly have to make a little more space on those shelves for future volumes." The Observatory Magazine#2

Dynamics of Star Clusters

Dynamics of Star Clusters
Author: Jeremy Goodman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400953356

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The emphasis in these proceedings of lAD Symposium No. 113, Dynafrri-,'!s of Star Clusters. and·.~.Le. mab rPIHlon for orZ'lnizinp: thE" symposium in the spring of 1984, was the rapid increase during the preceeding year in our understanding of core collapse. The last I.A.D. Symposium to discuss the dynamics of star clusters at length was No.69, Dynamics of Stellar Systems~ held in Besan~on in 1974. For a few years afterwards, globular clusters receiveu much attention due to the discovery of X-ray bursters and the mounting evidence that X-ray sources in globular clusters were formed in completely different ways than those within our galaxy. Globular clusters, which until this time had a reputation for sedate old age, turned out to lead violent private lives at high energies. However, in the early 80's globular clusters seemed to lose some of the glamor of the 70's. The grand speculations of heavy black holes lurking in their centers had to make way for a variety of observational evidence which indicated that the X-ray sources are low-mass close binaries instead. But, though dynamical fashion turned to heavy galac tic halos and so on, some of the unsolved theoretical problems regard ing the evolution of star clusters kept their fascination for a number of relatively isolated workers. After several years of inconspicuous labor, a number of preprints suddenly appeared in the spring of 1983 that studied the evolution of globular clusters after core collapse.

The Formation and Evolution of M33 as Revealed by Its Star Clusters

The Formation and Evolution of M33 as Revealed by Its Star Clusters
Author: Izaskun San Roman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2013-05-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461473276

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This thesis represents the first wide-field photometric and spectroscopic survey of star clusters in the nearby late-spiral galaxy M33. This system is the nearest example of a dwarf spiral galaxy, which may have a unique role in the process of galaxy formation and evolution. The cold dark matter paradigm of galaxy formation envisions large spiral galaxies, such as the Milky Way, being formed from the merger and accretion of many smaller dwarf galaxies. The role that dwarf spiral galaxies play in this process is largely unclear. One of the goals of this thesis is to use the star cluster population of M33 to study its formation and evolution from its early stages to the present. The thesis presents a new comprehensive catalog of M33 star clusters, which includes magnitudes, colors, structural parameters, and several preliminary velocity measurements. Based on an analysis of these data, the thesis concludes that, among other things, the evolution of M33 has likely been influenced by its nearby massive neighbor M31.

Exploring the Universe with the IUE Satellite

Exploring the Universe with the IUE Satellite
Author: Y. Kondo
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 769
Release: 2013-12-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400937539

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This book was conceived to commemorate the continuing success of the guest observer program for the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite observatory. It is also hoped that this volume will serve as a useful tutorial for those pursuing research in related fields with future space observatories. As the IUE has been the product of the three-way collaboration between the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and the British Engineering and Research Council (SERC), so is this book the fruit of the collaboration of the American and European participants in the IUE. As such, it is a testimony to timely international cooperation and sharing of resources that open up new possibilities. The IUE spacecraft was launched on the 26th of January in 1978 into a geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean. The scientific operations of the IUE are performed for 16 hours a day from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A, and for 8 hours a day from ESA Villafranca Satellite Tracking Station near Madrid, Spain.

MASSCLEAN - MASSive CLuster Evolution and ANalysis Package

MASSCLEAN - MASSive CLuster Evolution and ANalysis Package
Author: Bogdan Popescu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

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Stellar clusters are laboratories for stellar evolution. Their stellar content have an uniform age and chemical composition, but span a large mass interval. The majority of stars are born in clusters and end up in the general field population. An accurate characterization of stellar clusters could be used to built better models, from stellar evolution to the evolution of an entire galaxy. Regardless of the fact that they are so close, for many Milky Way clusters it is difficult to be observed because they are obscured by the dust in the disk of our Galaxy. The clusters from the Local Group and beyond are too distant, so only their integrated properties could be used most of the time. There is one way to analyze the observational data, to search for clusters, and to describe them: simulations. MASSCLEAN package was developed to provide a better characterization of Galactic clusters, to derive selection effects of current surveys, and to provide information about the extra-galactic clusters. Simulations of known Galactic clusters are used to get better constraints on their parameters, like mass, age, extinction, chemical composition and distance. This is the traditional way to describe the Galactic clusters, fitting the data using the available models. The difference is that MASSCLEAN simulations provide a consistent set of parameters. The majority of extra-galactic clusters are known only from their integrated properties, integrated magnitudes and colors. The current models for stellar populations are available only in the infinite mass limit. But the real clusters have a finite mass, and their integrated colors show a large dispersion (stochastic fluctuations). The description of the variation of integrated colors as a function of mass and age lead to the creation of MASSCLEANcolors database, based on 70 million Monte Carlo simulations. Since the entries in the database form a consistent set of integrated colors, integrated magnitudes, age and mass, they can be used to inprove the current age and mass determinations for extra-galactic clusters. The accuracy could be improved only by solving for age and mass toghether, and this is done by MASSCLEANage. An introduction to stellar clusters is presented in Chapter 1. A general description of the MASSCLEAN package is presented in Chapter 2, including its Galactic and extra-galactic applications. New search algorithms for stellar clusters and derivation of selection effects for current surveys should be based on cluster simulations. The variation of the integrated colors for stellar clusters as a function of mass and age is presented in Chapter 3. The color dispersion is presented as standard deviation. The entire distribution of integrated colors is presented in Chapter 4, along with MASSCLEANage and new values for age and mass for 37 LMC clusters. A larger population of LMC clusters with new estimations for age and mass is presented in Chapter 5. The new results for 600 clusters provide a new look to the LMC cluster population. The complete results for over 900 known clusters could be used to study the possible mass dependence of the cluster lifetime, dissolution time and infant mortality.

Massive Stellar Clusters

Massive Stellar Clusters
Author: Ariane Lançon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2000
Genre: Science
ISBN:

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Annotation Forty-four papers from the November 1999 workshop are divided into six sections: massive stellar clusters as stellar laboratories, observed cluster distributions, stellar population studies, the interplay between stellar evolution and cluster evolution, the evolution of cluster distribution, and observations and outlook. Topics include stochastic fluctuations in the spectrophotometric properties of star clusters, infrared and millimeter studies of red supergiants in OB association, and age dating old globular clusters in early-type galaxies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Physical Processes in Fragmentation and Star Formation

Physical Processes in Fragmentation and Star Formation
Author: Roberto Capuzzo-Dolcetta
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400906056

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Recent years have witnessed the expansion and multiplication of the observations of star formation and fragmentation accompanied by a consequent growth in the study of the underlying physical processes, the chemistry, the sites, the times, etc. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the formation of stars is likely to share many features with the formation of other self-gravitating objects. The present volume, therefore, discusses the formation of such objects in a systematic and comparative manner.