Exploration of the Origin of Galactic and Extragalactic Star Clusters through Simulated H-R Diagrams

Article Type

Research Article

Publication Title

Astrophysical Journal

Abstract

The present work explores the origin of the formation of star clusters in our Galaxy and in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) through simulated H-R diagrams and compare those with observed star clusters. The simulation study produces synthetic H-R diagrams through the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique using the star formation history (SFH), luminosity function (LF), abundance of heavy metal (Z), and a big library of isochrones as basic inputs and compares them with observed H-R diagrams of various star clusters. The distance-based comparison between those two diagrams is carried out through two-dimensional matching of points in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) after the optimal choice of bin size and appropriate distance function. It is found that in a poor medium of heavy elements (Z = 0.0004), the Gaia LF along with a mixture of multiple Gaussian distributions of the SFH may be the origin of formation of globular clusters (GCs). On the contrary, an enriched medium (Z = 0.019) is generally favored with the Gaia LF along with a double power law or Beta-type (i.e., unimodal) SFH, for the formation of globular clusters. For SMC clusters, the choice of an exponential LF and exponential SFH is the proper combination for a poor medium, whereas the Gaia LF with a Beta-type SFH is preferred for the formation of star clusters in an enriched medium.

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/abe543

Publication Date

4-16-2021

Comments

Open Access, Bronze, Green

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