TY - JOUR
T1 - Instantaneous starburst of the massive clusters westerlund1 and NGC3603YC
AU - Kudryavtseva, Natalia
AU - Brandner, Wolfgang
AU - Gennaro, Mario
AU - Rochau, Boyke
AU - Stolte, Andrea
AU - Andersen, Morten
AU - Da Rio, Nicola
AU - Henning, Thomas
AU - Tognelli, Emanuele
AU - Hogg, David
AU - Clark, Simon
AU - Waters, Rens
PY - 2012/5/10
Y1 - 2012/5/10
N2 - We present a new method to determine the age spread of resolved stellar populations in a starburst cluster. The method relies on a two-step process. In the first step, kinematic members of the cluster are identified based on multi-epoch astrometric monitoring. In the second step, a Bayesian analysis is carried out, comparing the observed photometric sequence of cluster members with sets of theoretical isochrones. When applying this methodology to optical and near-infrared high angular resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and adaptive optics observations of the 5Myr old starburst cluster Westerlund1 and 2Myr old starburst cluster NGC3603YC, we derive upper limits for the age spreads of 0.4 and 0.1Myr, respectively. The results strongly suggest that star formation in these starburst clusters happened almost instantaneously.
AB - We present a new method to determine the age spread of resolved stellar populations in a starburst cluster. The method relies on a two-step process. In the first step, kinematic members of the cluster are identified based on multi-epoch astrometric monitoring. In the second step, a Bayesian analysis is carried out, comparing the observed photometric sequence of cluster members with sets of theoretical isochrones. When applying this methodology to optical and near-infrared high angular resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and adaptive optics observations of the 5Myr old starburst cluster Westerlund1 and 2Myr old starburst cluster NGC3603YC, we derive upper limits for the age spreads of 0.4 and 0.1Myr, respectively. The results strongly suggest that star formation in these starburst clusters happened almost instantaneously.
KW - HertzsprungRussell and CM diagrams
KW - open clusters and associations: individual (Westerlund 1, NGC 3603 YC)
KW - stars: evolution
KW - stars: formation
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U2 - 10.1088/2041-8205/750/2/L44
DO - 10.1088/2041-8205/750/2/L44
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84860321767
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 750
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
M1 - L44
ER -