Star and Cluster Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Astrophysics
2009-10-30 v1
Abstract
A great burst of cluster formation increased the rate at which open clusters were formed in the Large Magellanic Cloud 3-5 Gyr ago by at least an order of magnitude. On the other hand the rate of star formation ~ 4 Gyr appears to have increased by a factor of only 2-4. This shows that the rate of cluster formation is not a good tracer of the rate at which stars are formed. Normalized to the same rate of star formation, the Large Cloud is presently forming / 600 times more star clusters than the Local Group dwarf irregular IC 1613. The high rate of cluster formation in merging gas-rich galaxies suggests that strong shocks might favor the formation of clusters.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9809362,
title = {Star and Cluster Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud},
author = {Sidney van den Bergh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9809362},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To be published in ApJ Letters 1998 November 1