The Spatial Evolution of Young Massive Clusters I. A New Tool to Quantitatively Trace Stellar Clustering

Abstract

Aims. To present the new novel statistical clustering tool 'INDICATE' which assesses and quantifies the degree of spatial clustering of each object in a dataset, discuss its applications as a tracer of morphological stellar features in star forming regions, and to look for these features in the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372). Results. We successfully recover known stellar structure of the Carina Nebula, including the 5 young star clusters in this region. Four sub-clusters contain no, or very few, stars with a degree of association above random which suggests they may be fluctuations in the field rather than real clusters. In addition we find: (1) Stars in the NW and SE regions have significantly different clustering tendencies, which is reflective of differences in the apparent star formation activity in these regions. Further study is required to ascertain the physical origin of the difference; (2) The different clustering properties between these two regions are even more pronounced for OB stars; (3) There are no signatures of classical mass segregation present in the SE region - massive stars here are not spatially concentrated together above random; (4) Stellar concentrations are more frequent around massive stars than typical for the general population, particularly in the Tr14 cluster; (5) There is a relation between the concentration of OB stars and the concentration of (lower mass) stars around OB stars in the centrally concentrated Tr14 and Tr15, but no such relation exists in Tr16. We conclude this is due to the highly sub-structured nature of Tr16. Conclusions. INDICATE is a powerful new tool employing a novel approach to quantify the clustering tendencies of individual objects in a dataset within a user-defined parameter space. As such it can be used in a wide array of data analysis applications.