GOALS-JWST: Revealing the Buried Star Clusters in the Luminous Infrared Galaxy VV 114

Linden, Sean T. and Evans, Aaron S. and Armus, Lee and Rich, Jeffrey A. and Larson, Kirsten L. and Lai, Thomas and Privon, George C. and U, Vivian and Inami, Hanae and Bohn, Thomas and Song, Yiqing and Barcos-Muñoz, Loreto and Charmandaris, Vassilis and Medling, Anne M. and Stierwalt, Sabrina and Diaz-Santos, Tanio and Böker, Torsten and van der Werf, Paul and Aalto, Susanne and Appleton, Philip and Brown, Michael J. I. and Hayward, Christopher C. and Howell, Justin H. and Iwasawa, Kazushi and Kemper, Francisca and Frayer, David T. and Law, David and Malkan, Matthew A. and Marshall, Jason and Mazzarella, Joseph M. and Murphy, Eric J. and Sanders, David and Surace, Jason (2023) GOALS-JWST: Revealing the Buried Star Clusters in the Luminous Infrared Galaxy VV 114. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 944 (2). L55. ISSN 2041-8205

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Abstract

We present the results of a James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam investigation into the young massive star cluster (YMC) population in the luminous infrared galaxy VV 114. We identify 374 compact YMC candidates with signal-to-noise ratios ≥ 3, 5, and 5 at F150W, F200W, and F356W, respectively. A direct comparison with our HST cluster catalog reveals that ∼20% of these sources are undetected at optical wavelengths. Based on yggdrasil stellar population models, we identify 17 YMC candidates in our JWST imaging alone with F150W – F200W and F200W – F356W colors suggesting they are all very young, dusty (AV = 5–15), and massive (105.8 < M⊙ < 106.1). The discovery of these "hidden" sources, many of which are found in the "overlap" region between the two nuclei, quadruples the number of t < 3 Myr clusters and nearly doubles the number of t < 6 Myr clusters detected in VV 114. Now extending the cluster age distribution (${dN}/d\tau \propto {\tau }^{\gamma }$) to the youngest ages, we find a slope of γ = −1.30 ± 0.39 for 106 < τ(yr) < 107, which is consistent with the previously determined value from 107 < τ(yr) < 108.5, and confirms that VV 114 has a steep age distribution slope for all massive star clusters across the entire range of cluster ages observed. Finally, the consistency between our JWST- and HST-derived age distribution slopes indicates that the balance between cluster formation and destruction has not been significantly altered in VV 114 over the last 0.5 Gyr.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Afro Asian Archive > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@afroasianarchive.com
Date Deposited: 19 Apr 2023 07:57
Last Modified: 24 Jul 2024 09:46
URI: http://info.stmdigitallibrary.com/id/eprint/502

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