2011/09/20 by P. Grosbøl, P. Grosbol, H. Dottori +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1109.4255
5 pages, 4 figures; proceedings of workshop: Stellar Clusters and Associations, Granada, May 2011
arxiv created 2011/09/20 · openalex publication_date 2011/09/20 · arxiv updated 2011/09/21 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Observations in the near-infrared (NIR) allow a detailed study of young stellar clusters in grand-design spiral galaxies which in visual bands often are highly obscured by dust lanes along the arms. Deep JHK-maps of 10 spirals were obtained with HAWK-I/VLT. Data for NGC 2997 are presented here to illustrate the general results for the sample. The (H-K)-(J-H) diagrams suggest that most stellar clusters younger than 7 Myr are significantly attenuated by dust with visual extinctions reaching 7 mag. A gap between younger and older cluster complexes in the (J-K)-Mk diagram indicates a rapid reduction of extinction around 7 Myr possibly due to expulsion of dust and gas after supernovae explosions. The cluster luminosity function is consistent with a power law with an exponent alpha ~ 2. Cluster luminosities of Mk = -15 mag are reached, corresponding to masses close to 106 Mo, with no indication of a cut-off. Their azimuthal angles relative to the main spiral arms show that the most massive clusters are formed in the arm regions while fainter ones also are seen between the arms. Older clusters are more uniformly distribution with a weaker modulation relative to the arms.