Issue |
A&A
Volume 507, Number 1, November III 2009
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | L5 - L8 | |
Section | Letters | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200913270 | |
Published online | 15 October 2009 |
A&A 507, L5-L8 (2009)
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Why simple stellar population models do not reproduce the colours of Galactic open clusters
A. E. Piskunov1,2,3 - N. V. Kharchenko1,3,4 - E. Schilbach3 - S. Röser3 - R.-D. Scholz1 - H. Zinnecker1
1 - Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16,
14482 Potsdam, Germany
2 - Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Acad. Sci., 48 Pyatnitskaya
Str., 109017 Moscow, Russia
3 - Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Mönchhofstraße 12-14, Zentrum für
Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
4 - Main Astronomical Observatory, 27 Academica Zabolotnogo Str., 03680
Kiev, Ukraine
Received 9 September 2009 / Accepted 3 October 2009
Abstract
Context. For Galactic open clusters, fundamental
parameters such
as age or reddening are usually determined independently of their
integrated colours. For extragalactic clusters, on the other hand, they
are derived by comparing their integrated colours with predictions of
simple stellar population (SSP) models.
Aims. We search for an explanation of the
disagreement between
the observed integrated colours of 650 local Galactic clusters and the
theoretical colours of present-day SSP models.
Methods. We check the hypothesis that the systematic
offsets between observed and theoretical colours, which are
and
,
are caused by neglecting the discrete nature of the underlying mass
function. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we construct artificial
clusters of coeval stars taken from a mass distribution defined by an
Salpeter initial mass function (IMF) and compare them with
corresponding ``continuous-IMF'' SSP models.
Results. If the discreteness of the IMF is taken
into account,
the model fits the observations perfectly and is able to explain
naturally a number of red ``outliers'' observed in the empirical
colour-age relation. We find that the systematic
offset between the continuous- and discrete-IMF colours reaches its
maximum of about 0.5 in (B-V)
for a cluster mass
at ages
,
and diminishes substantially but not completely to about one hundredth
of a magnitude at
at cluster masses
.
At younger ages, it is still present even in massive clusters, and for
it is larger than 0.1 mag in (B-V).
Only for very massive clusters (
)
with ages
is the offset small (of the order of 0.04 mag) and smaller
than
the typical observational error of colours of extragalactic clusters.
Key words: open clusters and associations: general - Galaxy: stellar content - galaxies: fundamental parameters - galaxies: photometry - galaxies: starburst - galaxies: star clusters
1 Introduction
Using data on accurate and homogeneous spatio-kinematic-photometric
membership
for 650 Galactic open clusters, we previously computed their integrated
magnitudes in B,
V, J, H, and
-passbands (Kharchenko
et al. 2009). The magnitudes are based on
accurate and uniform data from the ASCC-2.5 catalogue and were computed
by adding
the individual luminosities of the most secure cluster members. In
contrast to
previous lists of integrated magnitudes (e.g., those of Battinelli
et al. 1994; Lata
et al. 2002) of Galactic star clusters, our data
provide an independent and more importantly uniform dataset.
Hence, our integrated magnitudes can and should be used as
benchmarks
for studies of the populations of extragalactic star clusters.
Based on these uniform data, we found disagreement between the observed
colours of our cluster sample and theoretical colours derived from
simple stellar population (SSP) models. The comparison of the Kharchenko
et al. (2009) data with present-day SSP
models such as GALEV (Anders &
Fritze-v. Alvensleben 2003) and Starburst99 (Vázquez &
Leitherer 2005) illustrated a substantial offset of the order
of 0.2-0.3 mag in (B-V)
of the model colours with respect to the observations for clusters
younger than .
This is both remarkable
and important, since most
data such as age and mass collected nowadays for
the bulk of extragalactic clusters, are derived by comparing their
integrated light with the predictions of SSP models (see e.g., Bik et al. 2003).
The models are produced by evolutionary synthesis codes simulating the
extensive
and complicated stellar populations of galaxies. However, they are also
believed to be appropriate for describing cluster populations more than
five orders of magnitude less massive (and apparently far
simpler). Although star clusters may be influenced
by effects that are irrelevant to galaxies (e.g.,
low number statistics, because of the discreteness of the real IMF, or
dynamical mass-loss by evaporation of stars), the validity of the SSP
approach for star clusters can be tested from general considerations (Cerviño &
Luridiana 2004). In contrast, in this paper we apply the
issue
of the discreteness of the IMF to the specific
case of Galactic open clusters.
A colour offset of this kind was found previously by Lata et al. (2002), in the colour indices U-B, B - V, V - R, and V - I. However, they accept that only the offsets in V - R and V - I represent significant deviation of their observations from the model predictions. We suspect that the discreteness of the IMF in open clusters may explain these discrepancies. To study this issue in a more systematic way, we constructed our own SSP model that takes into account the effect of low number statistics (discreteness), which is a common problem for open star clusters. We cross-checked a continuous version of our code with GALEV and found good agreement.
The discreteness of the IMF itself is a natural assumption for any stellar ensemble consisting of individual objects. However, when one considers vast stellar populations (e.g., galaxies) that densely populate the entire colour-magnitude diagram, one can adopt a continuous IMF, which is more convenient for different technical reasons. For small populations (stellar clusters), the assumption of a discrete IMF is clearly appropriate. This letter describes the solution of a restricted problem, namely the influence of the discrete-IMF approach on the colours of young clusters. The full scope of results related to the IMF-discreteness effect on star clusters will be reported elsewhere.
2 The SSP models and observations
For the determination of integrated magnitudes (and colours) of Galactic open clusters, we refer the reader to Kharchenko et al. (2009), which also gives an overview of the cluster sample and references for further reading.
For simplicity, we refer to our SSP model hereafter as the
``realistic'' model, and
call the literature models ``standard'' models.
The standard SSP models were computed with help of the online servers
provided by the GALEV,
and
Starburst99
sites.
The input parameters of the realistic model are the total cluster mass ,
the initial
mass function (IMF) of cluster stars

(N being the number of stars with masses between








![]() |
Figure 1:
Observed colours of 650 Galactic open clusters compared to
theoretical colours computed from standard SSP models. The upper row is
for B-V, the bottom one for |
Open with DEXTER |
The photometric properties of the model are defined by the
implemented grid of the isochrones. For our model, we have used the
grid provided by the Padova group via the online server CMD.
According to our
experience, the Padova isochrones fit the brighter parts of the open
cluster CMDs reasonably well over a wide
range of cluster ages. These parts are responsible for the integrated
colours.
We used a solar metallicity grid (Z=0.019), and
retrieved the
passbands U,B,V,R,I
and
with an age range
and a step
in
of 0.05. For compatibility, we selected the same set of parameters
(i.e., underlying IMF, mass range limits,
isochrone set) for the standard
models. However, since the Padova group regularly updates their
isochrones, full compatibility between the isochrone grids used by the
realistic and
standard models cannot be guaranteed.
In Fig. 1,
we compare the location of the observations with the curves of the
standard model in the
colour-age diagram. GALEV and
Starburst99 tracks agree reasonably well with each other. The
above-mentioned offset of
the models with respect to observed colours for is
obvious in both of the colour-age diagrams.
![]() |
Figure 2:
Observed colours of 650 Galactic open clusters compared to
theoretical colours computed from realistic and standard SSP models.
The upper row is for B - V, the
bottom one for |
Open with DEXTER |
The observed clusters show a clear pattern, which at
is
represented by ``main sequence'' clusters (not containing red giants or
supergiants).
The considerable redward spread of observed points cannot be attributed
to
photometric errors; it is provided in this part of the diagram by a few
clusters containing yellow or red supergiants. For
,
one finds,
in general, clusters with red giants. The colour spread of older
clusters is caused by
different evolutionary stages of red giants in clusters of different
ages. The
depletion of the cluster sequence after
can be explained
by either cluster mortality (the typical lifetime of local clusters is
only around
,
according to Piskunov et al.
2006) or selection
effects, which are more significant for older clusters.
In the right column of Fig. 1, we compare the distributions of the observed cluster colours with the GALEV predictions. We took the ages of the real clusters from Kharchenko et al. (2009), and calculated the integrated colours from the GALEV model. The discrepancy between the observed colours and those from the standard model is obvious. The local star clusters in our Galaxy are much bluer (by about 0.3 mag in the optical and about 0.8 mag in the near IR) than ``theoretical'' clusters of the same age. We discuss this below in connection with the results for the realistic model.
3 The discreteness of the IMF and the SSP models
As we have already mentioned, a possible explanation of the
observed disagreement is the continuity of the IMF adopted in standard
SSP models, which means that every small mass interval of the given
isochrone emits light according to its
and
.
The total flux that a ``theoretical'' cluster emits is a result of the
integration over the isochrone, weighted by the given IMF.
It is immediately obvious that luminosity then scales with mass, once
the age (or the isochrone) is fixed. In the discrete approach, however,
only points on the isochrone where stars of a respective mass
are actually present contribute. The random realisations of the IMF
have statistical fluctuations even for a smooth probability density
distribution (i.e., smooth IMF). At the high-mass end of the mass
range, these fluctuations are particularly large because of low number
statistics, and produce gaps in the mass spectrum. In the case of a
single supergiant present in the
cluster at a given instant of time - a case frequently occurring in our
local
Galactic clusters - the colour fluctuations might be especially
strong. If the main sequence lifetime of the star closest in mass to
the supergiant exceeds the supergiant's lifetime, then after the
supergiant's
death the less-massive star remains on the main sequence, which makes
the cluster considerably bluer than it was before. The sparser the
stellar population of a cluster is (i.e., the lower its total mass)
the stronger the colour fluctuations are in the course of its
evolution.
After the most massive stars die, the red giant population of a cluster
reaches an equilibrium and the colour fluctuations of a
cluster begin to weaken.
Figure 2
is the counterpart of Fig. 1 for a
realistic
model of the scenario described above. The solid line with crosses and
the dashed line shown here correspond to the
discrete-IMF and to the continuous-IMF regimes, respectively, of the
same model. The total initial mass of the model is assumed to be ,
and
.
These parameters were chosen to provide a fit to the
colour distribution in the simplest case of our local young cluster
population.
The ultimate upper mass limit
is defined
by the Padova grid of isochrones, and
depends on both of the adopted
and
.
For example, for
and
and
,
the
upper mass limit to the simulated mass spectrum equals
.
In the latter case,
is limited by the adopted evolutionary grid.
For the standard models, this choice of parameters is however not
important.
The derived evolutionary track depends on neither
nor
.
The upper mass limit affects only the early stages of the cluster
evolution. The only parameter influencing the standard model is the IMF
slope
,
although this influence is not strong. To change substantially the
track, one would need to increase the exponent
to 4.35. A flattening of the IMF with respect
to the Salpeter value of the slope does not have a strong effect on the
colour-age
relation. We note that our continuous-IMF model agrees with the
predictions of the GALEV code and, hence, produces colours redder than
the observed colours at
.
The realistic model with the above parameters produces a mass spectrum
consisting of 3532 stars. In the mass range ,
however, the number of stars is only 599. This is
of the same size as the number of Pleiades members observed in this
mass range, which according to Belikov et al.
(1998) equals 780. Thus, the model appears to be comparable
to the Pleiades. The number of model stars with
is equal to 20. So, before the model cluster reaches the age of the
Pleiades
(
), it has produced 20 red
supergiants.
The twenty corresponding ``RG-events'' are clearly seen in
Fig. 2.
At all other times
(until
),
the cluster is seen as a ``main-sequence cluster'' and resides in the
MS-domain of the diagram. If we increase the lower bound
,
the number of
massive stars increases and the fraction of ``RG-events'' slowly
increases,
especially at older ages. But even at
,
the ``MS-clusters'' are
present in the track up to
.
On the other hand, decreasing
diminishes the number of
``RG-events''. In principle, from the frequency of red
outliers in the ``colour versus
'' diagram, one can
estimate indirectly the parameter
.
Although the above example provides only an explanation for the local
cluster population of typical mass of order of ,
it nevertheless illustrates the effect of
the discreteness on extragalactic clusters where the bulk of cluster
data comes from
analysing the integrated light. For clusters of mass of the order of
Dolphin &
Kennicutt (2002) found that this effect is rather small.
This finding was interpreted by some workers (e.g., Bastian
et al. 2005) as a
justification for neglecting discreteness. Among other arguments,
Bastian
et al. (2005) refer to the large masses of the
observed extragalactic clusters, and
assume that the effect only produces a symmetric spread around the
``true'' sequence.
However, observations also find
extragalactic clusters with masses typical of Galactic clusters
(see Mora et al.
2009).
Since Fig. 2
shows that the
effect is highly asymmetric with respect to the standard SSP sequence,
a study of the effect over the entire range of cluster masses is
appropriate.
To estimate the dependence of the discreteness effect on
cluster age
and mass, we have performed a series of Monte Carlo simulations. We
considered a set of
cluster models with masses spread over the range
.
For every model of a particular mass at the starting point, the
specific realisation of the initial mass spectrum was sampled at random
from the IMF. The evolution of the synthetic cluster was then followed
up to
.
At every time step, we compared the colours of the
realistic model with its standard counterpart and computed the colour
differences
.
Here the subscript r represents ``realistic'', and s
``standard''. For every
,
we compiled N=50
evolutionary sequences of cluster models by considering different
statistical realisations of the initial mass spectrum, and evaluated at
every time step the corresponding average difference in colour

and its statistical uncertainty


In Fig. 3, we summarize the colour bias produced by neglecting the IMF-discreteness effect, in the dependence on both the age and mass of a star cluster. The left panel shows the dependence of










The explicit dependence of the discreteness effect on cluster
mass, providing
the net-estimate of the effect for young clusters, can be derived if
one
averages the
versus
relations over the entire range of ages. The result is shown in the
right panel of Fig. 3.
The effect
is considerable (
)
for
.
At higher masses it is small although significant.
![]() |
Figure 3:
The colour displacement versus age relations ( left)
for cluster models of different masses. The curves correspond (
from bottom to top) to |
Open with DEXTER |
For the other colours the behaviour is qualitatively similar,
although the redder the passband, the stronger the effect is. This is
intuitively understandable. The effect is caused by quantization,
because red stars radiate proportionally more of their light at longer
wavelengths. For example, in the case of
the largest difference between the realistic and the standard models is
about -0.9 (cf. Fig. 3). In a
forthcoming paper, this issue will be discussed in more detail.
4 Concluding remarks
Observations of local Galactic open clusters have enabled us to measure their integrated magnitudes, masses, ages, and reddening. Using this data set, we have found a remarkable discrepancy between the observed colours and the predictions of SSP models. The main reason for this disagreement is the neglect of the assumption of IMF-discreteness. When this effect is taken into account, the model agrees adequately with the observations and is even able to explain the large colour spread observed in the empirical colour-age relation in a natural way.
In which conditions is the effect of discreteness relevant? Since it is a consequence of low-number statistics, it depends on the sparseness of the stellar population in the upper CMD of a cluster where the bulk of light is emitted. The density of the population depends primarily on cluster mass, and in addition on cluster age, on [strange at first glance] the lower mass limit of the stars formed, and to some degree on the slope of the IMF. In the context of this letter, other factors are not important.
According to our investigation, the systematic
offset between the continuous-
and discrete-IMF colours diminishes substantially but not completely at
,
at cluster masses
.
At younger ages, it remains
present even in massive clusters, and for
it is larger than 0.1 mag in (B-V).
Only for very massive clusters (
)
and young ages (
), the offset
falls below a typical
observational error. We note in passing that the effect is stronger
for redder passbands.
These findings are in good agreement with the theoretical forecast of Cerviño &
Luridiana (2004).
The immediate consequence of the application of a continuous-IMF
approach to the SSP models
of stellar clusters is a systematic underestimate of reddening. Other
problems
affect the age and mass determination based on evolutionary grids of
these models (at least for masses below
).
Because of the
rather flat colour-age relation of young clusters, a systematic error
of the order of 0.1 mag
produces an error in cluster age of about one order
of magnitude.
On the other hand, there is a danger that the
existence of a large number of ``main-sequence'' (i.e., blue) clusters
could be interpreted as evidence of a recent burst of star formation.
We can exclude such a burst having occured in our Galactic open
clusters even if they are blue. Finally, the
technique of the parameter determination should be changed to
incorporate the cluster flux variations caused by the discrete nature
of the upper IMF.
This study was supported by DFG grant 436 RUS 113/757/0-2, and RFBR grant 07-02-91566. We thank Drs. Anders and Maíz Apellániz for drawing our attention to the Cerviño & Luridiana paper.
References
- Anders, P., & Fritze-v. Alvensleben, U. 2003, A&A, 401, 1063 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Bastian, N., Gieles, M., Lamers, H. J. G. L. M., Scheepmaker, R. A., & de Grijs, R. 2005, A&A, 431, 905 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Battinelli, P., Brandimarti, A., & Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R. 1994, A&AS, 104, 379 [NASA ADS]
- Belikov, A. N., Hirte, S., Meusinger, H., Piskunov, A. E., & Schilbach, E. 1998, A&A, 332, 575 [NASA ADS]
- Bik, A., Lamers, H. J. G. L. M., Bastian, N., Panagia, N., & Romaniello, M. 2003, A&A, 397, 473 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Cerviño, M., & Luridiana, V. 2004, A&A, 413, 145 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Dolphin, A. E., & Kennicutt, Jr., R. C. 2002, AJ, 124, 158 [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Kharchenko, N. V., Piskunov, A. E., Röser, S., et al. 2009, A&A, 504, 681 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef]
- Lata, S., Pandey, A. K., Sagar, R., et al. 2002, A&A, 388, 158 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Mora, M. D., Larsen, S. S., Kissler-Patig, M., Brodie, J. P., & Richtler, T. 2009, A&A, 501, 949 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Piskunov, A. E., Kharchenko, N. V., Röser, S., Schilbach, E., & Scholz, R.-D. 2006, A&A, 445, 545 [EDP Sciences] [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
- Vázquez, G. A., & Leitherer, C. 2005, ApJ, 621, 695 [CrossRef] [NASA ADS]
Footnotes
- ... GALEV
- http://www.galev.org/
- ...
Starburst99
- http://www.stsci.edu/science/starburst99/
- ... CMD
- http://stev.oapd.inaf.it/cgi-bin/cmd
All Figures
![]() |
Figure 1:
Observed colours of 650 Galactic open clusters compared to
theoretical colours computed from standard SSP models. The upper row is
for B-V, the bottom one for |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 2:
Observed colours of 650 Galactic open clusters compared to
theoretical colours computed from realistic and standard SSP models.
The upper row is for B - V, the
bottom one for |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 3:
The colour displacement versus age relations ( left)
for cluster models of different masses. The curves correspond (
from bottom to top) to |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.