Disentangling the formation mechanisms of nuclear star clusters

¹ European Southern Observatory, Karl Schwarzschild Straße 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
² European Space Agency, European Space Research and Technology Centre, Keplerlaan 1, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
e-mail: katja.fahrion@esa.int
³ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
⁴ Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Türkenschanzstrasse 17, 1180 Wien, Austria

Received: 28 October 2020
Accepted: 29 November 2021

Abstract

Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are massive star clusters found ubiquitously in the centres of galaxies, from the dwarf regime to massive ellipticals and spirals. The fraction of nucleated galaxies is as high as > 90% at M_gal ∼ 10⁹ M_⊙. However, how NSC formation mechanisms work in different regimes and what determines galaxy nucleation is still unclear. The dissipationless accretion of infalling globular clusters (GCs) and the in situ formation of stars directly at the galactic centre likely operate to grow NSCs in most galaxies; however, their efficiency has been difficult to assess observationally. Here, we provide, for the first time, a quantitative determination of the relative strength of these processes in the build-up of individual NSCs. Using a semi-analytical model of NSC formation based on the orbital evolution of inspiraling GCs, together with observed NSC and GC system properties, we derived the mass fraction of in situ born stars f_in, NSC for 119 galaxies with masses from 3 × 10⁷ to 3 × 10¹¹ M_⊙, in the Local Volume, the Fornax, and Virgo galaxy clusters. Our analysis reveals that the NSC mass, as well as the ratio of NSC to the total GC system mass, are strong indicators of the dominant NSC formation channel, and not the total galaxy stellar mass as previously suggested. More massive NSCs formed predominantly via the in situ formation of stars (f_in, NSC ∼ 0.9), while the lower-mass NSCs are expected to have formed predominantly through the merger of GCs (f_in, NSC ∼ 0.2). The results of this simple model are in agreement with recent independent estimates of the dominant NSC formation channel from recent stellar population analysis.