Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
K. Fahrion, M. Lyubenova, G. van de Ven, M. Hilker, R. Leaman, J. Falcon-Barroso, A. Bittner, L. Coccato, E. M. Corsini, D. A. Gadotti, E. Iodice, R. M. McDermid, I. Martin-Navarro, F. Pinna, A. Poci, M. Sarzi, P. T. de Zeeuw, L. Zhu
Summary: Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are the densest stellar systems in the Universe and are thought to form via mergers of star clusters or in situ star formation at galaxy centers. Research shows that NSCs in low-mass galaxies are more metal-poor than their hosts, while NSCs in massive galaxies exhibit diverse star formation histories. There is a clear transition in the dominant formation channel of NSCs with both galaxy and NSC mass.
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Katja Fahrion, Teodora-Elena Bulichi, Michael Hilker, Ryan Leaman, Mariya Lyubenova, Oliver Muller, Nadine Neumayer, Francesca Pinna, Marina Rejkuba, Glenn van de Ven
Summary: Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) formation depends on the mass of the galaxies. Low-mass NSCs predominantly form from the merger of globular clusters (GCs) in dwarf galaxies, while high-mass NSCs in massive galaxies assemble through central enriched star formation. Spectral analysis of nine nucleated late-type dwarf galaxies shows that NSCs in low-mass galaxies mainly grow through the inspiral of GCs, while central star formation can contribute to NSC growth in more massive galaxies.
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Rose A. Finn, Benedetta Vulcani, Gregory Rudnick, Michael L. Balogh, Vandana Desai, Pascale Jablonka, Dennis Zaritsky
Summary: We investigate the role of dense environments in suppressing star formation by studying galaxies with log(10)(M- * / M-?) > 9.7 in nine clusters from the Local Cluster Survey. We find that SFR suppression increases with increasing bulge-to-total ratio in all environments. In addition, cluster and infall galaxies have more suppressed SFRs compared to field counterparts at all values of B/T, suggesting an additional mechanism in dense environments.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jordan A. Turner, Daniel A. Dale, James Lilly, Mederic Boquien, Sinan Deger, Janice C. Lee, Bradley C. Whitmore, Gagandeep S. Anand, Samantha M. Benincasa, Frank Bigiel, Guillermo A. Blanc, Melanie Chevance, Eric Emsellem, Christopher M. Faesi, Simon C. O. Glover, Kathryn Grasha, Annie Hughes, Ralf S. Klessen, Kathryn Kreckel, J. M. Diederik Kruijssen, Adam K. Leroy, Hsi-An Pan, Erik Rosolowsky, Andreas Schruba, Thomas G. Williams
Summary: The study reveals that after 4-6 million years, star clusters are no longer associated with any gas clouds. Moreover, the autocorrelation and cross-correlation of star clusters and GMCs are measured to quantify the fractal nature of hierarchical star formation. Young star clusters (<=10 million years) show stronger autocorrelation on kpc and smaller spatial scales compared to the >10 million-year-old stellar populations, indicating the dissolution of the hierarchical structure over time.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Michael Rodruck, Jane Charlton, Sanchayeeta Borthakur, Aparna Chitre, Patrick R. Durrell, Debra Elmegreen, Jayanne English, Sarah C. Gallagher, Caryl Gronwall, Karen Knierman, Iraklis Konstantopoulos, Yuexing Li, Moupiya Maji, Brendan Mullan, Gelys Trancho, William Vacca
Summary: In this study, star clusters in tidal tails were investigated using the Hubble Space Telescope. The results provide insights into the ages, masses, and formation efficiency of these star clusters. The study also reveals a strong correlation between the star formation rate of the tidal tails and the cluster formation efficiency.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jeremy J. Webb, Alison Sills
Summary: This study uses large scale N-body cluster simulations to determine the best initial mass and size distributions of young clusters in the nearby galaxy M83. The findings suggest that the initial masses follow a power-law distribution and the half-mass radii follow a lognormal distribution. It is concluded that observed cluster sizes and masses should not be used as the initial values for cluster evolution studies.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jing Chen, Zhongmu Li, Su Zhang, Yangyang Deng, Wenchang Zhao
Summary: This paper investigates the extended main-sequence turnoffs (eMSTOs) and stellar populations of three clusters with different ages using Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) data in detail. The colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of three Galactic clusters show broad main sequences, eMSTOs, blue stragglers, and red giant clumps. The effects of age spread, binaries, and rotating stars on the morphology of the entire CMD are explored, with particular emphasis on the effects of binary stars and rotating stars on eMSTOs.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Eimantas Krisciunas, Karolis Daugevicius, Rima Stonkute, Vladas Vansevicius
Summary: This study focuses on investigating degeneracies of age, mass, extinction, and metallicity determinations of star clusters using Hubble Space Telescope broadband aperture photometry. The research aims to provide a complete photometry catalogue for further analysis. The results demonstrate the consistency of color indices obtained through adaptive aperture photometry.
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Xi Meng, Oleg Y. Gnedin
Summary: We investigated the evolution of tidal fields experienced by massive star clusters in Milky Way-sized galaxies using cosmological simulations. We found that the tidal force on clusters is strongest in the first few hundred million years after formation, after which it plateaus at a lower value. The fraction of time spent by clusters in high tidal strength regions decreases with age. In situ and ex situ clusters experience similar tidal fields at early ages, but in situ clusters generally experience stronger tidal fields at older ages due to their lower orbits. This difference in tidal fields affects the survival of clusters, with ex situ clusters typically having a higher bound fraction than in situ clusters.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
K. George, B. M. Poggianti, N. Tomicic, J. Postma, P. Cote, J. Fritz, S. K. Ghosh, M. Gullieuszik, J. B. Hutchings, A. Moretti, A. Omizzolo, M. Radovich, P. Sreekumar, A. Subramaniam, S. N. Tandon, B. Vulcani
Summary: Spiral galaxies experience strong ram-pressure effects when entering galaxy clusters, resulting in gas stripping and the formation of extended tails with jellyfish-like appearance. Ultraviolet observations of jellyfish galaxies JW39, JO60, and JO194 reveal star formation knots in the disc and tails, with strong correlation between their UV and H alpha flux. Optical emission line ratio maps identify emission mechanisms (star formation, LINER, or mix) in different regions, with star-forming regions matching regions with significant UV flux.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Andres E. Piatti
Summary: By analyzing the space velocity components of SMC clusters, it was found that clusters in SMC tidally induced structures have significantly different velocities, while the oldest SMC cluster NGC 121 is not associated with any SMC tidal features.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Shoucheng Wang, Bingqiu Chen, Jun Ma
Summary: Determining the metallicities and ages of M31 clusters is crucial for understanding the formation and evolution of the M31 galaxy. Utilizing LAMOST spectra and multi-band photometry data, a new algorithm was developed to estimate metallicities and ages of 346 M31 clusters. The study successfully derived parameters for 53 young and 293 old clusters, with results in good agreement with existing literature and also providing new age and metallicities data for a significant number of sources.
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gillen Brown, Oleg Y. Gnedin
Summary: The study found that most galaxies share a common cluster radius distribution, with a peak around 3 pc, and high-mass clusters are more likely to expand without tidal limitations. There is a relationship between cluster radius and mass at different ages, with a noticeable scatter in cluster density distributions that seems to decrease with increasing cluster age.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Juan Manuel Salerno, Hernan Muriel, Valeria Coenda, Sofia A. Cora, Luis Pereyra, Andres N. Ruiz, Cristian A. Vega-Martinez
Summary: We analyse the relationship between the star formation quenching of galaxies and their location in the outskirts of clusters. We find that the star formation quenching is stronger in the filamentary region and the fraction of red galaxies is higher in this region compared to the isotropic infall region.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Seunghwan Lim, Douglas Scott, Arif Babul, David J. Barnes, Scott T. Kay, Ian G. McCarthy, Douglas Rennehan, Mark Vogelsberger
Summary: This study shows that current galaxy formation models do not predict enough star formation in protoclusters to match observations, with predicted star formation rates significantly lower than those seen in reality. By analyzing a well-studied protocluster core, it is found that star formation efficiency of protocluster galaxies is higher than predicted. The impact of numerical resolution on the simulations is significant, with a decrease in spatial resolution leading to a drop in star formation rates.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2021)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Francesco Paolo Rizzuto, Thorsten Naab, Rainer Spurzem, Manuel Arca-Sedda, Mirek Giersz, Jeremiah Paul Ostriker, Sambaran Banerjee
Summary: We present direct N-body simulations of young and compact low-metallicity star clusters and investigate the formation of massive black holes (BHs) through BH mergers and stellar mergers. The simulations show that each cluster hosts multiple BH merger events within the first tens of megayears, covering a wide range of BH masses. We also propose formation scenarios for massive BHs above the assumed lower mass-gap limit, including collisions of stars, BHs, and the direct collapse of stellar merger remnants. The results suggest that the updated stellar evolution models lead to the early formation of heavier stellar BHs and support the rapid formation of massive BHs through increased collision rates with massive stars. The simulations also reveal a possible first-generation formation scenario for GW190521-like events.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Andrew J. Winter, Giovanni P. Rosotti, Cathie Clarke, Mirek Giersz
Summary: Stars in globular clusters are affected by extreme environments, and observations show that hot Jupiters are less common in the central region of globular cluster 47 Tucanae compared to the field. This study explores the effects on the low-mass stellar initial mass function and suggests that tidal capture can produce tight stellar-brown dwarf binaries. However, the results show that capture rates are lower than previous estimates, and mass segregation reduces capture efficiency. Expanding the sample or surveying other globular clusters can provide further constraints on the substellar initial mass function.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
A. W. H. Kamlah, A. Leveque, R. Spurzem, M. Arca Sedda, A. Askar, S. Banerjee, P. Berczik, M. Giersz, J. Hurley, D. Belloni, L. Kuehmichel, L. Wang
Summary: This paper presents the implementation of updated stellar evolution recipes in several codes and tests them through numerical simulations of star clusters. The results show differences in density, remnant masses, and binary fractions between the different models. The mocca models produce more black holes and helium white dwarfs, while nbody6++gpu models have a larger amount of white dwarf-white dwarf binaries.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Ataru Tanikawa, Mirek Giersz, Manuel Arca Sedda
Summary: We utilized over 1000 star cluster Monte Carlo models from the MOCCA Survey Database 1 to estimate the local rate density of white dwarf (WD) tidal disruption events (TDEs) in globular clusters (GCs) and young massive clusters (YMCs). We found that the WD TDE rate in the local Universe for GCs and YMCs is approximately 90-500 per Gpc(-3) per year, with 90 percent of TDEs occurring in GCs. This total rate density is about 9-50 times higher than previous estimates. Our results indicate that the optical surveys of the next generation, such as the Legacy Survey of Space & Time by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, could observe thermonuclear explosions caused by WD TDEs at a rate of approximately 100-550 per year. We also discovered that massive WDs are more likely to be disrupted due to mass segregation, and that 20 percent of exploding WDs have a mass greater than or equal to 1.0 solar masses despite their small population.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Konrad Maliszewski, Mirek Giersz, Dorota Gondek-Rosinska, Abbas Askar, Arkadiusz Hypki
Summary: In this study, properties of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) that escape from star clusters due to dynamical interactions were investigated. The simulation models showed that high initial central density and central escape velocities increase the likelihood of IMBH formation and ejection. The majority of escaping IMBHs form binaries with other black holes and have masses between 100 and 140 M o . Escape is facilitated through repeated mergers in these binaries, with gravitational wave emission playing a key role. The study also discusses the observational implications and potential influence of gravitational wave recoil kicks on the process.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
A. W. H. Kamlah, R. Spurzem, P. Berczik, M. Arca Sedda, F. Flammini Dotti, N. Neumayer, X. Pang, Q. Shu, A. Tanikawa, M. Giersz
Summary: In this article, we present the results of eight direct N-body simulations, representing realistic models of rotating star clusters. We explore the impact of rotation and stellar evolution on the dynamics of these star clusters and find interesting differences between models with and without stellar evolution. We also observe an initial phase of violent relaxation followed by the gravogyro catastrophe in all runs for rotating star clusters.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Arkadiusz Hypki, Mirek Giersz, Jongsuk Hong, Agostino Leveque, Abbas Askar, Diogo Belloni, Magdalena Otulakowska-Hypka
Summary: We present an upgraded version of the MOCCA code for the study of dynamical evolution of globular clusters and its first application to the study of evolution of multiple stellar populations. The study explores the effects of different initial conditions on binary dynamics and survival, focusing on the number ratio and spatial variation of binaries, as well as their abundances. The findings highlight the abundance differences between first generation (FG) and second generation (SG) stars and demonstrate that MS stars can serve as proxies for the entire populations of FG and SG.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Lucas Hellstrom, Abbas Askar, Alessandro A. Trani, Mirek Giersz, Ross P. Church, Johan Samsing
Summary: In dense stellar clusters, close gravitational encounters between binary and single stars are common. This study simulated interactions between two black holes and a star using the tsunami code, and found that including orbital energy losses from tidal dissipation increased the number of mergers between black holes and stars by up to 75%, while not affecting the number of black hole-black hole mergers. These results emphasize the importance of considering orbital energy dissipation from dynamical tides in few-body interactions and the evolution of close binary systems within stellar cluster simulations.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2022)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
A. Leveque, M. Giersz, Abbas Askar, M. Arca-Sedda, A. Olejak
Summary: This study investigates the black hole population in globular clusters in Milky Way-like and Andromeda-like galaxies. By combining population synthesis code and a survey database, the properties of globular clusters with stellar-mass black hole subsystems, intermediate-mass black holes, or neither are inferred. The study finds that the number of clusters with different black hole components become comparable in the outskirts of galaxies, while the inner regions are dominated by clusters without a significant dark component. The study also examines the properties of merging binary black holes and estimates the merger rate in the local Universe. It is found that globular clusters are more efficient in the formation of black holes and binaries compared to the field. The study concludes by estimating the number of black holes and binary black holes in star clusters and gives a rating of 8 out of 10 for its importance.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Manuel Arca Sedda, Albrecht W. H. Kamlah, Rainer Spurzem, Francesco Paolo Rizzuto, Thorsten Naab, Mirek Giersz, Peter Berczik
Summary: The processes that govern the formation of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in dense stellar clusters involve stellar mergers, star-BH interactions, accretion, and BH binary (BBH) mergers. The formation mechanism of IMBHs is related to the density of the cluster. In denser clusters, the collapse of massive star collision products is the dominant process, while in less dense clusters, BBH mergers are the main channel for IMBH formation.
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
(2023)