Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Subproject B5: Open Star Clusters in the Milky Way

Subproject B5: Open Star Clusters in the Milky Way

Genevieve Parmentier (ARI), Ralf Klessen (ITA), Coryn Bailer-Jones (MPIA)

Open clusters as tracers of the evolution of the Galactic disk and their contribution to the stellar content of the disk at every stage of a clusters' life. Census and properties of open star clusters in the Milky Way. Determination of cluster dispersal rate and importance for the build-up of field populations. Recent star formation history of the disk as traced by clusters.

Stars always seem to form in groups, most of which do not survive the early rapid gas expulsion phase. The remaining ones usually disperse later due to internal and external effects, also contributing their stellar content to the field. At the beginning of the first funding period, about 2000 open clusters and associations were known, of which 60% did not have their basic properties determined, while the properties of the other 40% were often only poorly or heterogeneously measured. Using 2MASS and PPMXL, the work in B5 resulted in a catalog of 3,000 clusters with proper motions, distances, reddenings, ages, tidal radii, and masses, all homogeneously and uniformly derived. The publications in B5 are primary references for open cluster work world-wide. We noticed a curious lack of open clusters within 1 kpc. This paucity may be in part due to the difficulty of recognizing nearby stars as members of clusters, but nonetheless be reflecting a real deficit. Work is currently continuing with clustering analysis techniques to identify the missing objects.

Open clusters with homogeneously derived cluster parameters in 2010 and in 2013. Each dot indicates a star cluster

Publications

Pang, X., Pasquali, A., Grebel, E.K.: "A two-dimensional Map of the Color Excess in NGC 3603" ; 2011, AJ, 142, 132

Antoja, T., Helmi, A., Bienayme, O., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Famaey, B., Freeman, K., Gibson, B.K., Gilmore, G., Grebel. E.K., et al.: Kinematic groups beyond the solar neighbourhood with RAVE" ; 2012, MNRAS, 426, L1

Kharchenko, N.V., Piskunov, A.E., Schilbach, E., Röser, S., and Scholz, R.-D.: "Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way. I. The pipeline and fundamental parameters in the second quadrant"; A&A, 543, A156 (2012)

Pang, X., Grebel, E.K., Allison, R.J., Goodwin, S.P., Altmann, M., Harbeck, D., Moffat, A.F.J., & Drissen, L.: "The Star Cluster Formation History of the LMC" ; 2013, MNRAS, 430, 676

Kharchenko, N.V., A.E. Piskunov, E. Schilbach, S. Röser, and R.-D. Scholz: "Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way. II. The catalogue of basic parameters"; A&A, 558, A53 (2013)

Goldman, B., Röser, S., Schilbach, E., Magnier, E.A., Olczak, C., Henning, T., Juric, M., Schlafly, E., Chen, W.P., Platais, I., Burgett, W., Hodapp, K., Heasley, J., Kudritzki, R.P., Morgan, J.S., Price, P.A., Tonry, J.L., and Wainscoat, R.: "Towards a complete stellar mass function of the Hyades. I. Pan-STARRS1 optical observations of the low-mass stellar content"; A&A, 559, A43 (2013)

Sabbi, E., Anderson, J., Lennon, D.J., van der Marel, R.P., Aloisi, A., Boyer, M.L., Cignoni, M., de Marchi, G., de Mink, S.E., Evans, C.J., Gallagher, J.S., Gordon, K., Gouliermis, D.A., Grebel, E.K., et al.: Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project: Unraveling Tarantula's Web. I. Observational Overview and First Results" ; 2013, AJ, 146, 53

Conrad, C., Scholz, R.-D., Kharchenko, N.V., Piskunov, A.E., Schilbach, E., Roeser, S., Boeche, C., Kordopatis, G., Siebert, A., Williams, M., MUnari, U., Matijevic, G., Grebel, E.K., et al.: A RAVE Investigation on Galactic Open Clusters. I. Radial Velocities and Metallicities" ; 2014, A&A, 562, A54

Hanson, R.J. & Bailer-Jones, C.A.L.: "3D Galactic dust extinction mapping with multiband photometry" ; 2014, MNRAS, 438, 2938


Editor: T. Lisker
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