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The young stellar clusters in M51 and the impact of GMC encounters

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Bibliographic Details
Title: The young stellar clusters in M51 and the impact of GMC encounters
Authors: Jørgensen, Timmi G., Church, Ross P.
Contributors: Lund University, Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, Astrophysics, Lunds universitet, Naturvetenskapliga fakulteten, Fysiska institutionen, Astrofysik, Originator, Lund University, Profile areas and other strong research environments, Strategic research areas (SRA), eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration, Lunds universitet, Profilområden och andra starka forskningsmiljöer, Strategiska forskningsområden (SFO), eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration, Originator
Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 543(2):1410-1428
Subject Terms: Natural Sciences, Physical Sciences, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, Naturvetenskap, Fysik, Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi
Description: We investigate the young stellar cluster population of M51 and how it is affected by encounters with giant molecular clouds (GMCs). We combine a galactic model with N-body simulations of 5000 unique clusters in the mass range [600-24000] M⊙. We simulate each cluster twice: with (CR) and without (CN) tidal perturbations from the GMCs. We are able to reproduce the majority of the observed mass- and age functions. However, for the age function, we see a large discrepancy for clusters with masses ~5000 M⊙, which is likely related to incompleteness in the observations. We find that old low-mass clusters, located close to the galactic centre, are most likely to be disrupted. The effect of GMC encounters causes a decrease in survivability by 8 per cent points for the oldest clusters with initial masses below 6000 M⊙. For 15 clusters, we find that the presence of GMCs can protect the CR clusters from the rest of the galactic tidal field and thereby cause them to retain a significantly higher fraction of stars compared to the CN clusters. For clusters that are supervirialized, we find that the CR clusters have a higher virial ratio compared to the CN clusters, which is a result of interactions with GMCs. We see no significant difference between the CR and CN populations, indicating that over a time period of 200 Myr the effect of the GMCs cannot be detected.
Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1548
Database: SwePub
Description
Abstract:We investigate the young stellar cluster population of M51 and how it is affected by encounters with giant molecular clouds (GMCs). We combine a galactic model with N-body simulations of 5000 unique clusters in the mass range [600-24000] M⊙. We simulate each cluster twice: with (CR) and without (CN) tidal perturbations from the GMCs. We are able to reproduce the majority of the observed mass- and age functions. However, for the age function, we see a large discrepancy for clusters with masses ~5000 M⊙, which is likely related to incompleteness in the observations. We find that old low-mass clusters, located close to the galactic centre, are most likely to be disrupted. The effect of GMC encounters causes a decrease in survivability by 8 per cent points for the oldest clusters with initial masses below 6000 M⊙. For 15 clusters, we find that the presence of GMCs can protect the CR clusters from the rest of the galactic tidal field and thereby cause them to retain a significantly higher fraction of stars compared to the CN clusters. For clusters that are supervirialized, we find that the CR clusters have a higher virial ratio compared to the CN clusters, which is a result of interactions with GMCs. We see no significant difference between the CR and CN populations, indicating that over a time period of 200 Myr the effect of the GMCs cannot be detected.
ISSN:00358711
DOI:10.1093/mnras/staf1548