2014/07/10 by N. Bastian, Nate Bastian, Jay Strader · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stu1407
Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 8 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2014/07/10 · openalex publication_date 2014/08/09 · arxiv updated 2015/06/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Scenarios that invoke multiple episodes of star formation within young globular clusters (GCs) to explain the observed chemical and photometric anomalies in GCs, require that clusters can retain the stellar ejecta of the stars within them and accrete large amounts of gas from their surroundings. Hence, it should be possible to find young massive clusters in the local Universe that contain significant amounts (>10%) of the cluster mass of gas and/or dust within them. Recent theoretical studies have suggested that clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with masses in excess of 104\msun and ages between 30 and ∼300~Myr, should contain such gas reservoirs. We have searched for \hi gas within 12 LMC (and 1 SMC) clusters and also for dust using \em Spitzer 70\micron and 160\micron images. No clusters were found to contain gas and/or dust. While two of the clusters have \hi at the same (projected) position and velocity, the gas does not appear to be centred on the clusters, but rather part of nearby clouds or filaments, suggesting that the gas and cluster are not directly related. This lack of gas (<1% of the stellar mass) is in strong tension with model predictions, and may be due to higher stellar feedback than has been previously assumed or due to the assumptions used in the previous calculations.