Towards a fully consistent Milky Way disc model – III. Constraining the initial mass function

Context. The all-sky Milky Way Star Clusters (MWSC) survey provides uniform and precise ages, along with other relevant parameters, for a wide variety of clusters in the extended solar neighbourhood. Aims. In this study we aim to construct the cluster age distribution, investigate its spatial variations, and discuss constraints on cluster formation scenarios of the Galactic disk during the last 5 Gyrs. Methods. Due to the spatial extent of the MWSC, we have considered spatial variations of the age distribution along galactocentric radius RG, and along Z-axis. For the analysis of the age distribution we used 2242 clusters, which all lie within roughly 2.5 kpc of the Sun. To connect the observed age distribution to the cluster formation history we built an analytical model based on simple assumptions on the cluster initial mass function and on the cluster mass-lifetime relation, fit it to the observations, and determined the parameters of the cluster formation law. Results. Comparison with the literature shows that earlier results strongly underestimated the number of evolved clusters with ages t ≳ 100 Myr. Recent studies based on all-sky catalogues agree better with our data, but still lack the oldest clusters with ages t ≳ 1 Gyr. We do not observe a strong variation in the age distribution along RG, though we find an enhanced fraction of older clusters (t > 1 Gyr) in the inner disk. In contrast, the distribution strongly varies along Z. The high altitude distribution practically does not contain clusters with t < 1 Gyr. With simple assumptions on the cluster formation history, the cluster initial mass function and the cluster lifetime we can reproduce the observations. The cluster formation rate and the cluster lifetime are strongly degenerate, which does not allow us to disentangle different formation scenarios. In all cases the cluster formation rate is strongly declining with time, and the cluster initial mass function is very shallow at the high mass end.

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A Deep Survey for Faint Galactic Wolf-Rayet Stars

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900045952 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 143 ◽

pp. 591-594 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M.M. Shara ◽

M. Potter ◽

A.F.J. Moffat ◽

L.F. Smith

Keyword(s):

Milky Way ◽

Massive Stars ◽

Mass Function ◽

Initial Mass Function ◽

Initial Mass ◽

The Galaxy ◽

Deep Survey ◽

Visual Magnitude ◽

Objective Prism

Surveys of the Galaxy for Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are mostly based on objective prism searches, and are generally complete to only about 13th visual magnitude. We are using direct narrowband and broadband Schmidt plates to survey large areas of the southern Milky Way for WR stars to 17-18th magnitude. We expect to find more than 50 new WR stars. The newly detected stars should be among the most distant and/or reddened known in the Galaxy. The survey is also designed to test the completeness of previous bright WR star surveys, and thus to help settle debates over the Initial Mass Function of the most massive stars. We have now located 13 new WR stars in a 40 square degree region in Carina where 24 WR stars were already known. A 25% incompleteness in detection of WR stars as close as 2-3 kpc is suggested.

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