Issue |
A&A
Volume 446, Number 1, January IV 2006
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 121 - 135 | |
Section | Galactic structure, stellar clusters, and populations | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20053573 | |
Published online | 09 January 2006 |
Probing disk properties with open clusters
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Física, CP 15051, Porto Alegre 91501-970, RS, Brazil e-mail: charles@if.ufrgs.br
Received:
3
June
2005
Accepted:
19
September
2005
We use the open clusters (OCs) with known parameters available in the WEBDA
database and in recently published papers to derive properties related to the disk
structure such as the thin-disk scale height, displacement of the Sun above the Galactic
plane, scale length and the OC age-distribution function. The sample totals 654 OCs,
consisting basically of Trumpler types I to III clusters whose spatial distribution
traces out the local geometry of the Galaxy. We find that the population of OCs with ages
younger than 200 Myr distributes in the disk following an exponential-decay profile with
a scale height of zh pc. For the clusters with ages in the range 200 Myr to
1 Gyr we derive zh pc. Clusters older than 1 Gyr distribute nearly uniformly
in height from the plane so that no scale height can be derived from exponential fits.
Considering clusters of all ages we obtain an average scale height of zh pc. We
confirm previous results that zh increases with Galactocentric distance. The scale height
implied by the OCs younger than 1 Gyr outside the Solar circle is a factor larger
than zh of those interior to the Solar circle. We derive the displacement of the Sun above
the Galactic plane as
pc, which agrees with previous determinations using
stars. As a consequence of the completeness effects, the observed radial distribution of OCs
with respect to Galactocentric distance does not follow the expected exponential profile,
instead it falls off both for regions external to the Solar circle and more sharply towards the
Galactic center. We simulate the effects of completeness assuming that the observed distribution
of the number of OCs with a given number of stars above the background, measured in a restricted zone outside the Solar circle, is representative of the intrinsic distribution of OCs throughout the Galaxy. Two simulation models are considered in which the intrinsic number of observable stars are distributed: (i) assuming the actual positions of the OCs in the sample, and (ii)
random selection of OC positions. As a result we derive completeness-corrected radial distributions
which agree with exponential disks throughout the observed Galactocentric distance range 5–14 kpc,
with scale lengths in the range RD, smaller than those inferred by means of stars.
In particular we retrieve the expected exponential-disk radial profile for the highly depleted
regions internal to the Solar circle. The smaller values of RD may reflect intrinsic differences in
the spatial distributions of OCs and stars. We derive a number-density of Solar-neighbourhood (with
distances from the Sun
) OCs of
, which implies a total
number of (Trumpler types I to III) OCs of
of which
would already have been
observed. Extrapolation of the completeness-corrected radial distributions down to the Galactic
center indicates a total number of OCs in the range
.
These estimates are
upper-limits because they do not take into account depletion in the number of OCs by dynamical effects
in the inner parts of the Galaxy. The observed and completeness-corrected age-distributions of the
OCs can be fitted by a combination of two exponential-decay profiles which can be identified with the
young and old OC populations, characterized by age scales of
and
,
respectively. This rules out evolutionary scenarios based on constant star-formation and OC-disruption
rates. Comparing the number of observed embedded clusters and candidates in the literature with the
expected fraction of very young OCs, derived from the observed age-distribution function, we estimate
that 3.4–8% of the embedded clusters do actually emerge from the parent molecular clouds as OCs.
Key words: Galaxy: open clusters and associations: general / Galaxy: structure
© ESO, 2006
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