Are the compact star clusters in M82 evolving towards globular clusters?
Abstract
Recent HST/ACS images of M82 covering the entire galaxy have been used to detect star clusters. The galaxy is known to contain a young population (age < 10 Myr) in its starburst nucleus, surrounded by a post-starburst disk of age < 1 Gyr. We detect more than 650 star clusters in this galaxy, nearly 400 of them in the post-starburst disk. These data have been used to derive the luminosity, mass and size functions separately for the young nuclear, and intermediate-age disk clusters. In this contribution, we discuss the evolutionary status of these clusters, especially, on the chances of some of these clusters surviving to become old globular clusters.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0710.2145,
title = {Are the compact star clusters in M82 evolving towards globular clusters?},
author = {Y. D. Mayya and D. Rosa-Gonzalez and L. Rodriguez and L. Carrasco and R. Romano and A. Luna},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.2145},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
To appear in proceedings of the Puerto Vallarta Conference on ``New Quests in Stellar Astrophysics II: Ultraviolet Properties of Evolved Stellar Populations'' eds. M. Chavez, E. Bertone, D. Rosa-Gonzalez & L. H. Rodriguez-Merino, Springer, ASSP series