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The lives and deaths of star clusters near the Galactic center
Journal article   Open access

The lives and deaths of star clusters near the Galactic center

Simon Portegies Zwart, Junichiro Makino, Stephen McMillan and Piet Hut
The Astrophysical journal, v 565(1), pp 265-279
14 Feb 2001
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/324141
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1086/324141View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Maybe Open Access (Publisher Bronze),  Open

Abstract

Physics - Astrophysics of Galaxies Physics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
We study the evolution and observability of young, compact star clusters near the Galactic center, such as the Arches and Quintuplet systems. The clusters are modeled by integrating the equations of motion of all stars while accounting for the internal evolution of stars and binaries, as well as the effect of the Galactic tidal field. We find that clusters within 150 pc of the Galactic center dissolve within ~55 Myr, but their projected densities drop below the background density in the direction of the Galactic center within only a few Myr, effectively making these clusters undetectable after that time. Detailed observations of the Arches cluster, taken at face value, suggest that its mass function is unusually flat and that the cluster contains an overabundance of stars more massive than 20 Msun. Our dynamical analysis, however, shows that the observed characteristics of the Arches cluster are consistent with a perfectly normal initial mass function. The observed anomalies are then caused by a combination of observational selection effects and the dynamical evolution of the cluster. We calibrate the current parameters of the Arches cluster using a normal initial mass function and conclude that the cluster is more massive than 40000 Msun, has a half mass radius of about 0.35 pc and is located between 50 and 90 pc from the Galactic center.

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105 citations in Web of Science
101 citations in Scopus

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Astronomy & Astrophysics
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