English

Nitrogen-enriched, highly-pressurized nebular clouds surrounding a super star cluster at cosmic noon

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-11-07 v3

Abstract

Strong lensing offers a precious opportunity for studying the formation and early evolution of super star clusters that are rare in our cosmic backyard. The Sunburst Arc, a lensed Cosmic Noon galaxy, hosts a young super star cluster with escaping Lyman continuum radiation. Analyzing archival HST images and emission line data from VLT/MUSE and X-shooter, we construct a physical model for the cluster and its surrounding photoionized nebula. We confirm that the cluster is 4\lesssim4\,Myr old, is extremely massive M107MM_\star \sim 10^7\,M_\odot and yet has a central component as compact as several parsecs, and we find a gas-phase metallicity Z=(0.22±0.03)ZZ=(0.22\pm0.03)\,Z_\odot. The cluster is surrounded by 105M\gtrsim 10^5\,M_\odot of dense clouds that have been pressurized to P109Kcm3P\sim 10^9\,{\rm K}\,{\rm cm}^{-3} by perhaps stellar radiation at within ten parsecs. These should have large neutral columns NHI>1022.5cm2N_{\rm HI} > 10^{22.5}\,{\rm cm}^{-2} to survive rapid ejection by radiation pressure. The clouds are likely dusty as they show gas-phase depletion of silicon, and may be conducive to secondary star formation if NHI>1024cm2N_{\rm HI} > 10^{24}\,{\rm cm}^{-2} or if they sink further toward the cluster center. Detecting strong NIII]λλ{\rm N III]}\lambda\lambda1750,1752, we infer heavy nitrogen enrichment log(N/O)=0.210.11+0.10\log({\rm N/O})=-0.21^{+0.10}_{-0.11}. This requires efficiently retaining 500M\gtrsim 500\,M_\odot of nitrogen in the high-pressure clouds from massive stars heavier than 60M60\,M_\odot up to 4 Myr. We suggest a physical origin of the high-pressure clouds from partial or complete condensation of slow massive star ejecta, which may have important implication for the puzzle of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.10790,
  title  = {Nitrogen-enriched, highly-pressurized nebular clouds surrounding a super star cluster at cosmic noon},
  author = {Massimo Pascale and Liang Dai and Christopher F. McKee and Benny T. -H. Tsang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.10790},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

27 pages, 11 figures, Published in ApJ