All Figures

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=12.5cm,height=12.5cm,clip]{7733fig1.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 1: A color composite of the frames of IRAS 16362-4845 obtained through the J (blue), H (green) and $K_{\rm S}$ (red) filters. The frames are centered on the brightest source at near-infrared wavelengths, CSR-012A ( $\alpha (2000)=16^{\rm h} 40^{\rm m} 00^{\rm s}2$ , $\delta (2000) = -48^\circ 51' 40''$ ). The field covered is $52'' \times 57''$ , with North at the top and East to the left. A comparison with Fig. 12 of CSR05 gives an appreciation of the increase in quality between the observations discussed in that paper and those presented here. The small red ring just outside the upper right edge of the nebula is actually an artifact due to out-of-focus ghosts of the brightest star in the cluster. The dashed line corresponds to $\alpha (2000)=16^{\rm h} 40^{\rm m} 01^{\rm s}78$ . As explained in Sect. 3.2 contamination by background sources is higher to the East of this line, and we exclude that region from our analysis.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{7733fig2.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 2: A comparison between the images obtained through the narrow-band filters centered on the Br $\gamma$ ( top) and the H₂ $S(1) \ v=1 \rightarrow 0$ ( bottom) lines. Both images are on the same intensity scale. More stars are visible in the H₂ image due to the lower nebular intensity and the better adaptive optics correction. The field covered by each image is $48'' \times 48''$ .
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=6.5cm,clip]{7733fig3.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 3: L'-band image of the region around CSR-012A, the brightest star in the K-band, showing the rich concentration of cluster members around it.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{7733fig4.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 4: A wider-field view of the IRAS 16362-4845 region obtained with the IRAC camera on board of the Spitzer space observatory at a central wavelength of 8 $\mu$ m. The western edge of the nebula is marked by a bright, crescent-shaped rim probably dominated by PAH emission. Some of the brightest cluster members have strong mid-infrared excesses and can be identified in the Spitzer image. The image corresponds to AOR key number 12486912 (Program # 112, "IRAC and IRS observations of RCW 108'', Principal Investigator G. Fazio), and has been obtained from the Spitzer archive.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8cm,clip]{7733fig5.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 5: $(H-K_{\rm S}), K_{\rm S}$ color-magnitude diagram of the IRAS 16362-4845 cluster. Full large dots are stars located in the region dominated by the cluster, whereas the small open circles are objects located in the low-extinction region to the East of $\alpha (2000) = 16^{\rm h} 40^{\rm m} 01^{\rm s}7$ and dominated by faint background sources. The dotted line marks the position of the completeness limits in H and $K_{\rm S}$ given in Table 3. The solid line is the 1 Myr isochrone of the models of Palla & Stahler (1999) using the infrared colors derived by Testi et al. (1999). The dashed line marks the position of a 1 $M_\odot$ star obscured by varying amounts of extinction. The lower right end of the line corresponds to A_V = 40 mag. Finally, the dot-dashed line delimits the area where CSR05 noted an absence of faint, lightly reddened stars, which is further discussed in Sect. 3.2. The bottom of the area corresponds to the approximate detection limit of the observations of CSR05.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.2cm,clip]{7733fig6.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 6: $(H-K_{\rm S})$ , (J-H) color-color diagram of the IRAS 16362-4845 cluster. Symbols are the same as in Fig. 5. The solid line represents the position of 1 Myr old unreddened stars with no circumstellar infrared excess from the models of Palla & Stahler (1999). The dashed lines are reddening vector whose lengths corresponds to an extinction A_V = 40 mag. The top vector has its origin at the position of a 1 $M_\odot$ star, and the bottom has its origin at the position of an early O-type star. This latter vector delimits the area accessible to a normal photosphere reddened by extinction, and the position of objects to the right of this line denotes the existence of infrared excess.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=8.2cm,clip]{7733fig7.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 7: $(K_{\rm S}-L')$ , $(H-K_{\rm S})$ color-color diagram of the IRAS 16362-4845 cluster. Symbols and lines have the same meaning as in Fig. 6, but now we have not plotted the reddening vector with its origin at the position of a O-type star (bottom left end of the solid line) since it does not separate anymore the regions accessible and inaccessible to normal photospheres reddened by extinction.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.4cm,clip]{7733fig8.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 8: The K luminosity function (KLF) of the IRAS16362-4845 embedded cluster, expressed as number of stars per 1 mag bin. The solid line corresponds to the extinction-limited sample that considers members with line-of-sight extinctions A_V < 23.8, which is complete down to M_K = 4.0. An unrestricted KLF including all the cluster members (as well as possibly a few very reddened background stars) is represented by the dashed line. This latter KLF is virtually complete for the brightest bins, but becomes progressively incomplete as fainter stars become undetectable due to extinction. Finally, the KLF derived by Muench et al. (2002) for the Trapezium cluster is shown for reference, scaled by an arbitrary factor for convenience in the representation. The absolute magnitude scale for the Trapezium has been set by assuming its distance modulus to be 8.0, as used by those authors. No correction for extinction has been applied to the Trapezium KLF. Given that the vast majority of the Trapezium members have extinctions below A_K = 0.5 (see Fig. 4a of Muench et al. 2002), a mean extinction correction would shift the Trapezium KLF by less than one bin towards the left.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.8cm,clip]{7733fig9.eps} \end{figure}$ Figure 9: Spectral energy distribution of the protostellar candidate CS-109.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=6.5cm,clip]{7733fig3.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 3: L'-band image of the region around CSR-012A, the brightest star in the K-band, showing the rich concentration of cluster members around it.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.8cm,clip]{7733fig9.eps} \end{figure}$	Figure 9: Spectral energy distribution of the protostellar candidate CS-109.
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