The ACS nearby galaxy survey treasury. X. Quantifying the star cluster formation efficiency of nearby dwarf galaxies

David O. Cook*, Anil C. Seth, Daniel A. Dale, L. Clifton Johnson, Daniel R. Weisz, Morgan Fouesneau, Knut A.G. Olsen, Charles W. Engelbracht, Julianne J. Dalcanton

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the relationship between the field star formation and cluster formation properties in a large sample of nearby dwarf galaxies. We use optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and from ground-based telescopes to derive the ages and masses of the young (t age ≲ 100Myr) cluster sample. Our data provide the first constraints on two proposed relationships between the star formation rate (SFR) of galaxies and the properties of their cluster systems in the low SFR regime. The data show broad agreement with these relationships, but significant galaxy-to-galaxy scatter exists. In part, this scatter can be accounted for by simulating the small number of clusters detected from stochastically sampling the cluster mass function. However, this stochasticity does not fully account for the observed scatter in our data, suggesting that there may be true variations in the fraction of stars formed in clusters in dwarf galaxies. Comparison of the cluster formation and the brightest cluster in our sample galaxies also provide constraints on cluster destruction models.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number100
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume751
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1 2012

Keywords

  • galaxies: dwarf
  • galaxies: irregular
  • galaxies: star clusters: general
  • galaxies: star clusters: individual
  • galaxies: star formation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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