The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury. X. Quantifying the Star Cluster Formation Efficiency of nearby Dwarf Galaxies

June 2012 • 2012ApJ...751..100C

Authors • Cook, David O. • Seth, Anil C. • Dale, Daniel A. • Johnson, L. Clifton • Weisz, Daniel R. • Fouesneau, Morgan • Olsen, Knut A. G. • Engelbracht, Charles W. • Dalcanton, Julianne J.

Abstract • We study the relationship between the field star formation and cluster formation properties in a large sample of nearby dwarf galaxies. We use optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and from ground-based telescopes to derive the ages and masses of the young (t _age <~ 100 Myr) cluster sample. Our data provide the first constraints on two proposed relationships between the star formation rate (SFR) of galaxies and the properties of their cluster systems in the low SFR regime. The data show broad agreement with these relationships, but significant galaxy-to-galaxy scatter exists. In part, this scatter can be accounted for by simulating the small number of clusters detected from stochastically sampling the cluster mass function. However, this stochasticity does not fully account for the observed scatter in our data, suggesting that there may be true variations in the fraction of stars formed in clusters in dwarf galaxies. Comparison of the cluster formation and the brightest cluster in our sample galaxies also provide constraints on cluster destruction models.

Links

• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.4826
• NED https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/uri/NED::InRefcode/2012ApJ...751..100C
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.1088%2F0004-637X%2F751%2F2%2F100
• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2012ApJ...751..100C
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/751/2/100/pdf
• PDF https://stacks.iop.org/0004-637X/751/100/pdf
• DATA https://archive.stsci.edu/mastbibref.php?bibcode=2012ApJ...751..100C
• DATA https://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst/#/pages/search;bibcode=2012ApJ...751..100C