F. Niederhofer

No evidence for significant age spreads in young massive LMC clusters

Recent discoveries have put the picture of stellar clusters being simple stellar populations into question. In particular, the color-magnitude diagrams of intermediate age (1-2 Gyr) massive clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) show features that could be interpreted as age spreads of 100-500 Myr. If multiple generations of stars are present in these clusters then, as a consequence, young (<1 Gyr) clusters with similar properties should have age spreads of the same order. In this paper we use archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data of eight young massive LMC clusters (NGC 1831, NGC 1847, NGC 1850, NGC 2004, NGC 2100, NGC 2136, NGC 2157 and NGC 2249) to test this hypothesis. We analyzed the color-magnitude diagrams of these clusters and fitted their star formation history to derive upper limits of potential age spreads. We find that none of the clusters analyzed in this work shows evidence for an extended star formation history that would be consistent with the age spreads proposed for intermediate age LMC clusters. Tests with artificial single age clusters show that the fitted age dispersion of the youngest clusters is consistent with spreads that are purely induced by photometric errors. As an additional result we determined a new age of NGC 1850 of ~100 Myr, significantly higher than the commonly used value of about 30 Myr, although consistent with early HST estimates.

The morphology of the sub-giant branch and red clump reveal no sign of age spreads in intermediate-age clusters

A recent surprise in stellar cluster research, made possible through the precision of Hubble Space Telescope photometry, was that some intermediate-age (1–2 Gyr) clusters in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) widths that are significantly broader than would be expected for a simple stellar population (SSP). One interpretation of these extended MSTOs (eMSTOs) is that age spreads of the order of ∼500 Myr exist within the clusters, radically redefining our view of stellar clusters, which are traditionally thought of as single-age, single-metallicity stellar populations. Here we test this interpretation by studying other regions of the CMD that should also be affected by such large age spreads, namely the width of the sub-giant branch (SGB) and the red clump (RC). We study two massive clusters in the LMC that display the eMSTO phenomenon (NGC 1806 and NGC 1846) and show that both have SGB and RC morphologies that are in conflict with expectations if large age spreads exist within the clusters. We conclude that the SGB and RC widths are inconsistent with extended star formation histories within these clusters, hence age spreads are not likely to be the cause of the eMSTO phenomenon. Our results are in agreement with recent studies that also have cast doubt on whether large age spreads can exist in massive clusters; namely the failure to find age spreads in young massive clusters, a lack of gas/dust detected within massive clusters, and homogeneous abundances within clusters that exhibit the eMSTO phenomenon.

The Search for Multiple Populations in Magellanic Cloud Clusters II: The Detection of Multiple Populations in Three Intermediate-Age SMC Clusters

This is the second paper in our series about the search for multiple populations in Magellanic Cloud star clusters using the Hubble Space Telescope. Here we report the detection of multiple stellar populations in the colour-magnitude diagrams of the intermediate-age clusters Lindsay 1, NGC 416 and NGC 339. With ages between 6.0 and 7.5 Gyr, these clusters are the youngest ones in which chemical abundance spreads have been detected so far. This confirms that the appearance of multiple populations is not restricted to only ancient globular clusters, but may also be a common feature in clusters as young as 6 Gyr. Our results are in agreement with a recent spectroscopic study of Lindsay 1. We found that the fraction of enriched stars in NGC 416 is ~45% whereas it is ~25% in NGC 339 and ~36% in Lindsay 1. Similar to NGC 121, these fractions are lower than the average value for globular clusters in the Milky Way.

Is the escape velocity in star clusters linked to extended star formation histories? Using NGC 7252: W3 as a test case

The colour–magnitude diagrams of some intermediate-age (1–2 Gyr) star clusters show unexpectedly broad main-sequence turnoffs, raising the possibility that these clusters have experienced more than one episode of star formation. Such a scenario predicts the existence of an extended main-sequence turnoff (eMSTO) only in clusters with escape velocities above a certain threshold (>15 km s−1), which would allow them to retain or accrete gas that eventually would fuel a secondary extended star formation episode. This paper presents a test of this scenario based on the study of the young and massive cluster NGC 7252: W3. We use the HST photometry from Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and Wide Field Camera 3 images obtained with UV and optical filters, as well as MagE echellette spectrograph data from the Las Campanas Clay 6.5 m telescope, in order to construct the observed UV/optical Spectral energy distribution (SED) of NGC 7252: W3. The observations are then compared with synthetic spectra based on different star formation histories consistent with those of the eMSTO clusters. We find that the SED of this cluster is best fitted by a synthetic spectrum with a single stellar population of age 570^{+70}_{-62} Myr and mass 1.13^{+0.14}_{-0.13}\times 10^8  M⊙, confirming earlier works on NGC 7252:W3. We also estimate the lower limit on the central escape velocity of 193 km s−1. We rule out extended star formation histories, like those inferred for the eMSTO clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, at high confidence. We conclude that the escape velocity of a cluster does not dictate whether a cluster can undergo extended periods of star formation.

A young cluster with an extended main-sequence turnoff: confirmation of a prediction of the stellar rotation scenario

We present Hubble Space Telescope photometry of NGC 1850, a ~100 Myr, ~105 M⊙ cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The colour-magnitude diagram clearly shows the presence of an extended main-sequence turnoff (eMSTO). The use of non-rotating stellar isochrones leads to an age spread of ~40 Myr. This is in good agreement with the age range expected when the effects of rotation in the main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) stars are wrongly interpreted in terms of age spread. We also do not find evidence for multiple, isolated episodes of star formation bursts within the cluster, in contradiction to scenarios that invoke actual age spreads to explain the eMSTO phenomenon. NGC 1850 therefore continues the trend of eMSTO clusters, where the inferred age spread is proportional to the age of the cluster. While our results confirm a key prediction of the scenario where stellar rotation causes the eMSTO feature, direct measurements of the rotational rate of MSTO stars is required to definitively confirm or refute whether stellar rotation is the origin of the eMSTO phenomenon or if it is due to an as yet undiscovered effect.

The catalogue of radial velocity variable hot subluminous stars from the MUCHFUSS project

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims to find sdBs with compact companions like massive white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Here we provide classifications, atmospher ic parameters and a complete radial velocity (RV) catalogue containing 1914 single measurements for an sample of 177 hot subluminous stars discovered based on SDSS DR7. 110 stars show significant RV va riability, while 67 qualify as candidates. We constrain the fraction of close massive compact companions of hydrogen-rich hot subdwarfs in our sample to be smaller than ∼ 1.3%, which is already close to the theoretical predictions. However, the sample might still contain such binaries with longer periods exceeding∼ 8 d. We detect a

Age as a major factor in the onset of multiple populations in stellar clusters

It is now well established that globular clusters (GCs) exhibit star-to-star light-element abundance variations (known as multiple stellar populations, MPs). Such chemical anomalies have been found in (nearly) all the ancient GCs (more than 10 Gyr old) of our Galaxy and its close companions, but so far no model for the origin of MPs is able to reproduce all the relevant observations. To gain new insights into this phenomenon, we have undertaken a photometric Hubble Space Telescope survey to study clusters with masses comparable to that of old GCs, where MPs have been identified, but with significantly younger ages. Nine clusters in the Magellanic Clouds with ages between

Outflow structure and velocity field of Orion source - I. ALMA imaging of SiO isotopologue maser and thermal emission

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The search for multiple populations in Magellanic Cloud Clusters – III. No evidence for multiple populations in the SMC cluster NGC 419

1.5-11 Gyr have been targeted in this survey. We confirm the presence of multiple populations in all clusters older than 6 Gyr and we add NGC 1978 to the group of clusters for which MPs have been identified. With an age of

A high fraction of Be stars in young massive clusters: evidence for a large population of near-critically rotating stars

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