arXiv subjects

Andrés E. Piatti

Publications and source records attributed to Andrés E. Piatti.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Revisiting the old end of the Milky Way open cluster age function

The age distribution of the open cluster system is a key piece of information to decipher the star formation history of the Milky Way disk. Recently, a remarkable earlier drop of its older end was found, which caught our attention. Precisely, we analyzed in detail the population of open clusters older than 1 Gyr located inside a circle of 2.0 kpc from the Sun contained in the Milky Way Star Cluster catalog, using the Data Release 3.0 of the Gaia survey, and found that it contains a slightly larger old open cluster population with respect to that witnessing the earlier drop age distribution. However, there are still some aspects that deserve further attention in order to undoubtedly handle a statistically complete cluster sample, that allows us to comprehensively know the older end of the open cluster age distribution function. We discuss some reasons that affect such a completeness, among them, the photometric depth of the database employed, the performance of machine learning techniques used to recognize open clusters, the cleaning of cluster color-magnitude diagrams from field star contamination, etc.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

The dual nature of the tidal tails of NGC 5904 (M5)

The tangential velocity dispersion of stars belonging to the Milky Way globular cluster's tidal tails has recently been found from N-body simulations to be a parameter that distinguishes between cored and cuspy profiles of low-mass dwarf galaxy dark matter subhaloes where that globular cluster formed, and the in-situ formation scenario. In this context, we discovered that M5's tidal tails are composed by stars at two different metallicity regimes ([Fe/H] ~ -1.4 dex and -2.0 dex). The more metal-rich tidal tail stars are of the same metal content than M5's members and have a tangential velocity dispersion that coincides with the predicted value for a cuspy formation scenario (subhalo mass $\sim$ 10$^9$ M$_{\odot}$). The more metal-poor stars, that are found along the entire M5 tidal tails and have similar distributions to their more metal-rich counterparts in the M5 colour-magnitude diagram and orbit trajectory, have a tangential velocity dispersion that refers to a cored subhalo (mass $\sim$ 10$^9$ M$_{\odot}$) or an in-situ formation scenario. In order to reconcile the dual distribution of M5 tidal tail stars, in kinematics and chemistry, we propose that M5 collided with another more metal-poor and less massive globular cluster anytime before or after it was accreted into the Milky Way.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

The Origin of the Large Magellanic Cloud Globular Cluster NGC 2005

The ancient Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) globular cluster NGC 2005 has recently been reported to have an ex-situ origin, thus, setting precedents that the LMC could have partially formed from smaller merged dwarf galaxies. We here provide additional arguments from which we conclude that is also fairly plausible an in-situ origin of NGC 2005, based on the abundance spread of a variety of chemical elements measured in dwarf galaxies, their minimum mass in order to form globular clusters, the globular cluster formation imprints kept in their kinematics, and the recent modeling showing that explosions of supernovae are responsible for the observed chemical abundance spread in dwarf galaxies. The present analysis points to the need for further development of numerical simulations and observational indices that can help us to differentiate between two mechanisms of galaxy formation for the LMC, namely, a primordial dwarf or an initial merging event of smaller dwarfs.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Catching a Milky Way open cluster in its last breath

Theoretical models have suggested peculiar velocity dispersion profiles of star clusters facing dissolution. They predicted that, besides bound stars that still belong to the star cluster, and unbound ones already stripped off, there is an intermediate population of stars that having acquired the enough energy to escape the cluster are still within the cluster Jacobi radius. Both, potential escapers and unbound stars, show hot kinematics, not observed along tidal tails of star clusters. We report on the first evidence of an open cluster with stars crossing such a transitional scenario, namely: ASCC 92. The open cluster gathers nearly 10 percent of its initial total mass, and is moving toward Galactic regions affected by higher interstellar absorption. Precisely, the obscured appearance of the cluster could have hampered disentangling its true internal dynamical evolutionary stage, previously.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

Small Magellanic Cloud field stars meddling in star cluster age estimates

I revisited the age of the Small Magellanic Cloud cluster HW 42, whose previous estimates differ in more than 6 Gyr, thus challenging the most updated knowledge of the SMC star formation history. I performed an analysis of number stellar density profiles at different brightness levels; carried out a field star decontamination of the cluster color-magnitude diagram; and estimated the cluster fundamental parameters from the minimization of likelihood functions and their uncertainties from standard bootstrap methods. I conclude that HW 42 is a 6.2$^{\rm +1.6}_{\rm -1.3}$ Gyr old ([Fe/H] = -0.89$^{\rm +0.10}_{\rm -0.11}$ dex) SMC cluster projected on to a SMC composite star field population which shows variations in magnitude, color, and stellar density of Main Sequence stars. The present outcome solves the conundrum of the previous age discrepancies and moves HW~42 to a region in the SMC age-metallicity relationship populated by star clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

First evidence of a stripped star cluster from the Small Magellanic Cloud

We present results on the recently discovered stellar system YMCA-1, for which physical nature and belonging to any of the Magellanic System galaxies have been irresolutely analyzed. We used SMASH and {\it Gaia} EDR3 data sets to conclude that we are dealing with a small star cluster. Its reddening free, field star decontaminated colour-magnitude diagram was explored in order to obtain the cluster parameters. We found that YMCA-1 is a small (435 M$_{\odot}$), moderately old (age = 9.6 Gyr), moderately metal-poor ([Fe/H] = -1.16 dex) star cluster, located at a nearly Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) distance (60.9 kpc) from the Sun, at $\sim$ 17.1 kpc to the East from the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) centre. The derived cluster brightness and size would seem to suggest some resemblance to the recently discovered faint star clusters in the Milky Way (MW) outer halo, although it does not match their age-metallicty relationship, nor those of MW globular clusters formed in-situ or ex-situ, nor that of LMC clusters either, but is in agreement with that of SMC old star clusters. We performed numerical Monte Carlo simulations integrating its orbital motion backward in the MW-LMC-SMC system with radially extended dark matter haloes that experience dynamical friction, and by exploring different radial velocity (RV) regimes for YMCA-1. For RVs $\gtrsim$ 300 km/s, the cluster remains bound to the LMC during the last 500 Myrs. The detailed tracked kinematic of YMCA-1 suggests that its could have been stripped by the LMC from the SMC during any of the close interactions between both galaxies, a scenario previously predicted by numerical simulations.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

On the physical size of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 7089 (M 2)

We study the outer regions of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 7089 based on new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) observations. The resulting background cleaned stellar density profile reveals the existence of an extended envelope. We confirm previous results that cluster stars are found out to ~ 1deg from the cluster's centre, which is nearly three times the value of the most robust tidal radii estimations. We also used results from direct N-body simulations in order to compare with the observations. We found a fairly good agreement between the observed and numerically generated stellar density profiles. Because of the existence of gaps and substructures along globular cluster tidal tails, we closely examined the structure of the outer cluster region beyond the Jacobi radius. We extended the analysis to a sample of 35 globular clusters, 20 of them with observed tidal tails. We found that if the stellar density profile follows a power law ~ r**(-alpha), the alpha slope correlates with the globular cluster present mass, in the sense that, the more massive the globular cluster the smaller the alpha value. This trend is not found in globular clusters without observed tidal tails. The origin of such a phenomenon could be related, among other reasons, to the proposed so-called potential escapers or to the formation of globular clusters within dark matter mini-haloes.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

A genuine Large Magellanic Cloud age gap star cluster

We confirm the existence of a second Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) star cluster, KMHK 1592, with an age that falls in the middle of the so-called LMC star cluster age gap, a long period of time (~ 4 - 11 Gyr) where no star cluster had been uncovered, except ESO121-SC03. The age (8.0+-0.5 Gyr) and the metallicity ([Fe/H]=-1.0+-0.2 dex) of KMHK1592 were derived from the fit of theoretical isochrones to the intrinsic star cluster colour-magnitude diagram sequences, which were unveiled using a robust star-by-star membership probability procedure. Because of the relative low brightness of the star cluster, deep GEMINI GMOS images were used. We discuss the pros and cons of three glimpsed scenarios that could explain the presence of both LMC age gap star clusters in the outskirts of the LMC, namely: in-situ star cluster formation, capture from the Small Magellanic Cloud, or accretion of a small dwarf galaxy.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

First evidence of a collision between two unrelated open clusters in the Milky Way

We report the first evidence of an on-going collision between two star clusters in our Galaxy, namely IC 4665 and Collinder 350. These are open clusters located at a distance of ~330 pc from the Sun and ~100 pc above the Galactic plane, and they both have prograde motions with only a small difference in their velocities (Collinder 350 moves ~5 km/s faster than IC 4665); as inferred from ESA/Gaia based catalogue. Interestingly, the two clusters are physically separated by only 36 pc in space; a distance that is smaller than the sum of their respective radii. Furthermore, the clusters exhibit signatures of elongated stellar density distributions, and we also detect an onset of an inter-cluster stellar bridge. Moreover, the orbit analysis suggests that the younger cluster IC 4665 (age=53 Myr) must have formed at a distance > 500 pc away from Collinder 350 (age=617 Myr). These findings together imply that the two clusters do not represent merging of two objects in a binary system, rather, what we are witnessing is an actual collision between two independently formed star clusters. This collision phenomenon provides a unique opportunity to explore new aspects of formation and evolution theory of star clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

DECam photometry reveals extra-tidal stars around the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 6864 (M75)

Globular clusters are prone to lose stars while moving around the Milky Way. These stars escape the clusters and are distributed throughout extended envelopes or tidal tails. However, such extra-tidal structures are not observed in all globular clusters, and yet there is no structural or dynamical parameters that can predict their presence or absence. NGC\,6864 is an outer halo globular cluster with reported no observed tidal tails. We used Dark Energy Camera (DECam) photometry reaching $\sim$ 4 mag underneath its main sequence turnoff to confidently detect an extra-tidal envelope, and stellar debris spread across the cluster outskirts. These features emerged once robust field star filtering techniques were applied to the fainter end of the observed cluster main sequence. NGC\,6864 is associated to the {\it Gaia}-Enceladus dwarf galaxy, among others 28 globular clusters. Up-to-date, nearly 64$\%$ of them have been targeted looking for tidal tails and most of them have been confirmed to exhibit tidal tails. Thus, the present outcomes allow us to speculate on the possibility that {\it Gaia}-Enceladus globular clusters share a common pattern of mass loss by tidal disruption.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Revisiting a detached stellar structure in the outer northeastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The outer northeastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is populated by a shell-like overdensity whose nature was recently investigated. We analyzed twenty catalogued star clusters projected onto it from Survey of the MAgellanic Stellar History data sets. After carrying out a cleaning of field stars in the star cluster colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), and deriving their astrophysical properties from the comparison between the observed and synthetic CMDs, we found that four objects are not genuine star clusters, while the remaining ones are young star clusters (11, age $\sim$ 30-200 Myr) and intermediate-age (5, age $\sim$ 1.7-2.8 Gyr) star clusters, respectively. The resulting distances show that intermediate-age and some young star clusters belong to the SMC main body, while the remaining young star clusters are nearly 13.0 kpc far away from those in the SMC, revealing that the shell-like overdensity is more extended along the line-of-sight than previously thought. We also found a clear age trend and a blurred metallicity correlation along the line-of-sight of young clusters, in the sense that the farther a star cluster from the SMC, the younger, the more metal rich, and the less massive it is. These young clusters are also affected by a slightly larger interstellar reddening than the older ones in the shell-like overdensity. These outcomes suggest that the shell-like overdensity can possibly be another tidally perturbed/formed SMC stellar structure from gas striped off its body, caused by the interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud or the Milky Way.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Residual velocities of Small Magellanic Cloud star clusters

We analyzed the largest Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) cluster sample (32) with proper motions and radial velocity measurements, from which we obtained their space velocity components. By adopting as a reference the recent best-fitted rotating disc of SMC star clusters as a function of the position angle, we computed their residual velocity vectors, and compared their magnitudes ($Δ$V) with that of a cluster with residual velocity components equal to the velocity dispersions along the three independent SMC rotating disc axes of motion ($Δ$V = 60 km/s). We found that clusters that belong to SMC tidally induced structures have $Δ$V > 50 km/s, which suggests that space velocities of clusters in the process of escaping the rotating disc kinematics, are measurably different. Studied clusters pertaining to a northern branch of the Magellanic Bridge, the main Magellanic Bridge, the Counter-Bridge and the West halo give support to these findings. NGC 121, the oldest known SMC cluster, does not belong to any SMC tidal feature, and has $Δ$V = 64 km/s, slightly above the boundary between bound and kinematically perturbed clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Globular cluster candidates in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy

Recently, new Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf galaxy globular clusters were discovered, which opens the question on the actual size of the Sgr globular cluster population, and therefore on our understanding of the Sgr galaxy formation and accretion history onto the Milky Way. Based on Gaia EDR3 and SDSS IV DR16 (APOGEE-2) data sets, we performed an analysis of the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of the eight new Sgr globular clusters found by from a sound cleaning of the contamination of Milky Way and Sgr field stars, complemented by Minniti et al. (2021b) available kinematic and metal abundance information. The cleaned CMDs and spatial stellar distributions reveal the presence of stars with a wide range of cluster membership probabilities. Minni 332 turned out to be a younger (< 9 Gyr) and more metal-rich ([M/H] > -1.0 dex) globular cluster than M54, the nuclear Sgr globular cluster, as could also be the case of Minni 342, 348, and 349, although their results are less convincing. Minni 341 could be an open cluster candidate (age < 1 Gyr, [M/H] ~ -0.3 dex), while the analyses of Minni 335, 343, and 344 did not allow us to confirm their physical reality. We also built the Sgr cluster frequency (CF) using available ages of the Sgr globular clusters and compared it with that obtained from the Sgr star formation history. Both CFs are in excellent agreement. However, the addition of eight new globular clusters with ages and metallicities distributed according to the Sgr age-metallicity relationship turns out in a remarkably different CF.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

The surroundings of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC 6809

We study the outer regions of the Milky Way globular cluster NGC6809 based on Dark Energy Camera (DECam) observations, which reach nearly 6 mag below the cluster main sequence (MS) turnoff. In order to unveil its fainter outermost structure, we built stellar density maps using cluster MS stars, once the contamination of field stars was removed from the cluster color-magnitude diagram. We found that only the resulting stellar density map for the lightest stars exhibits some excesses of stars at opposite sides from the cluster centre that diminish soon thereafter at ~ 0.32 deg. Studied globular clusters with apogalactic distances smaller than that of NGC6809 (5.5 kpc) do not have observed tidal tails. The lack of detection of tidal tails in the studied inner globular cluster sample could be due to the reduced diffusion time of tidal tails by the kinematically chaotic nature of the orbits of these globular clusters, thus shortening the time interval during which the tidal tails can be detected. Further investigations with an enlarged cluster sample are needed to confirm whether chaotic and non-chaotic orbits are responsible for the existence of globular clusters with tidal tails and those with extra-tidal features that are different from tidal tails or without any signatures of extended stellar density profiles.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

The kinematics of Small Magellanic Cloud star clusters

We report results of proper motions of 25 known Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) clusters (ages ~ 1 - 10 Gyr old) derived from Gaia EDR3 data sets. When these mean proper motions are gathered with existent radial velocity measurements to compose the clusters' velocity vectors, we found the parameter values of a rotation disk that best resemble their observed motions, namely: central coordinates and distance, inclination and position angle of the line-of-node, proper motion in right ascension and declination and systemic velocity, rotation velocity and velocity dispersion. The SMC cluster rotation disk seems to be at some level kinematically synchronized with the rotation of field red giants recently modeled using DR2 data sets. Such a rotation disk is seen in the sky as a tilted edge-on disk, with a velocity dispersion perpendicular to it twice as big as that in the plane of the disk. Because the direction perpendicular to the disk is nearly aligned with the Magellanic Bridge, we interpret the larger velocity dispersion as a consequence of the SMC velocity stretching caused by the tidal interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud. Rotation alone would not seem sufficient to explain the observed kinematic behaviors in the SMC.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Revisiting newly Large Magellanic Cloud age gap star clusters

Recently, a noticeable number of new star clusters was identified in the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) populating the so-called star cluster age gap, a space of time (~ 4-12 Gyr) where the only known star cluster is up-to-date ESO121-SC\,03. We used Survey of the Magellanic Stellar History (SMASH) DR2 data sets, as well as those employed to identify these star cluster candidates, to produce relatively deep color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of 17 out of 20 discovered age gap star clusters with the aim of investigating them in detail. Our analysis relies on a thorough CMD cleaning procedure of the field star contamination, which presents variations in its stellar density and astrophysical properties, such as luminosity and effective temperature, around the star cluster fields. We built star cluster CMDs from stars with membership probabilities assigned from the cleaning procedure. These CMDs and their respective spatial distribution maps favor the existence of LMC star field density fluctuations rather than age gap star clusters, although a definitive assessment on them will be possible from further deeper photometry.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

APOGEE discovery of a chemically atypical star disrupted from NGC 6723 and captured by the Milky Way bulge

The central (`bulge') region of the Milky Way is teeming with a significant fraction of mildly metal-deficient stars with atmospheres that are strongly enriched in cyanogen ($^{12}$C$^{14}$N). Some of these objects, which are also known as nitrogen-enhanced stars, are hypothesised to be relics of the ancient assembly history of the Milky Way. Although the chemical similarity of nitrogen-enhanced stars to the unique chemical patterns observed in globular clusters has been observed, a direct connection between field stars and globular clusters has not yet been proven. In this work, we report on high-resolution, near-infrared spectroscopic observations of the bulge globular cluster NGC 6723, and the serendipitous discovery of a star, 2M18594405$-$3651518, located outside the cluster (near the tidal radius) but moving on a similar orbit, providing the first clear piece of evidence of a star that was very likely once a cluster member and has recently been ejected. Its nitrogen abundance ratio ([N/Fe]$\gtrsim + 0.94$) is well above the typical Galactic field-star levels, and it exhibits noticeable enrichment in the heavy $s$-process elements (Ce, Nd, and Yb), along with moderate carbon enrichment; all characteristics are known examples in globular clusters. This result suggests that some of the nitrogen-enhanced stars in the bulge likely originated from the tidal disruption of globular clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

On the structure of Small Magellanic Cloud star clusters

It has been recently shown from observational data sets the variation of structural parameters and internal dynamical evolution of star clusters in the Milky Way and in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), caused by the different gravitational field strengths that they experience. We report here some hints for such a differential tidal effects in structural parameters of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), which is nearly 10 times less massive than the LMC. A key contribution to this study is the consideration of the SMC as a triaxial spheroid, from which we estimate the deprojected distances to the SMC center of the statistically significant sample of star clusters analyzed. By adopting a 3D geometry of the SMC, we avoid the spurious effects caused by considering that a star cluster observed along the line-of-sight is close to the galaxy center. When inspecting the relationships between the star cluster sizes (represented by the 90% light radii), their eccentricities, masses and ages with the deprojected distances, we find: (i) the star cluster sizes are not visibly affected by tidal effects, because relatively small and large objects are spread through the SMC body. (ii) Star clusters with large eccentricities (> 0.4) are preferentially found located at deprojected distances smaller than $\sim$ 7-8 kpc, although many star clusters with smaller eccentricities are also found occupying a similar volume. (iii) Star clusters more massive than log(M /Mo) $\sim$ 4.0 are among the oldest star clusters, generally placed in the outermost SMC region and with a relative small level of flattening. These findings contrast with the more elongated, generally younger, less massive and innermost star clusters.

astro-ph.GA↗