THE ACS NEARBY GALAXY SURVEY TREASURY. X. QUANTIFYING THE STAR CLUSTER FORMATION EFFICIENCY OF NEARBY DWARF GALAXIES

Journal Article · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/751/2/100· OSTI ID:22037183

Cook, David O; Dale, Daniel A ^[1]; Seth, Anil C ^[2]; Johnson, L Clifton; Weisz, Daniel R; Fouesneau, Morgan; Dalcanton, Julianne J ^[3]; Olsen, Knut A. G. ^[4]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
4. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States)

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{sub age} {approx}< 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.

• OSTI ID: 22037183
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 751, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EFFICIENCY
GALAXIES
MASS
STAR CLUSTERS
STARS
TELESCOPES
VARIATIONS