A systematic survey for infrared star clusters with |b|<20deg using 2MASS
Abstract
We used star density maps obtained from 2MASS to obtain a sample of star clusters in the entire Galactic Plane with |b|<20deg. A total of 1788 star cluster candidates are identified in this survey. Among those are 681 previously known open clusters and 86 globular clusters. A statistical analysis indicates that our sample of 1021 new cluster candidates has a contamination of about 50%. Star cluster parameters are obtained by fitting a King profile to the star density. These parameters are used to statistically identify probable new globular cluster candidates in our sample. A detailed investigation of the projected distribution of star clusters in the Galaxy demonstrates that they show a clear tendency to cluster on spatial scales in the order of 12-25pc, a typical size for molecular clouds.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0610146,
title = {A systematic survey for infrared star clusters with |b|<20deg using 2MASS},
author = {D. Froebrich and A. Scholz and C. L. Raftery},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0610146},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
31 pages, 7 Figures, 3 Tables, Accepted for publication by MNRAS, A version with higher resolution figures can be found at http://astro.kent.ac.uk/~df/