Physical properties of circumnuclear ionising clusters

III. Kinematics of gas and stars in NGC 7742

¹ Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
² CIAFF, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
³ Instituto de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, 72840 Puebla, Mexico
⁴ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK
⁵ Facultad de Astronomia y Geofisica, Universidad de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
⁶ Instituto de Investigación Multidisciplinar en Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile
⁷ Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile

^⋆⋆ Corresponding author; sandra.zamora@uam.es

Received: 21 March 2024
Accepted: 19 August 2024

Abstract

Context. In this third paper of a series, we study the kinematics of the ionised gas and stars, calculating the dynamical masses of the circumnuclear star-forming regions in the ring of of the face-on spiral NGC 7742.

Aims. We have used high spectral resolution data from the MEGARA instrument attached to the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to measure the kinematical components of the nebular emission lines of selected HII regions and the stellar velocity dispersions from the CaT absorption lines that allow the derivation of the associated cluster virialized masses.

Methods. The emission line profiles show two different kinematical components: a narrow one with velocity dispersion ∼10 km/s and a broad one with velocity dispersion similar to those found for the stellar absorption lines. The derived star cluster dynamical masses range from 2.5 × 10⁶ to 10.0 × 10⁷ M_⊙.

Results. The comparison of gas and stellar velocity dispersions suggests a scenario where the clusters have formed simultaneously in a first star formation episode with a fraction of the stellar evolution feedback remaining trapped in the cluster, subject to the same gravitational potential as the cluster stars. Between 0.15 and 7.07% of the total dynamical mass of the cluster would have cooled down and formed a new, younger, population of stars, responsible for the ionisation of the gas currently observed.