Bibcode
Clark, J. S.; Lohr, M. E.; Patrick, L. R.; Najarro, F.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 623, id.A84, 9 pp.
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3
2019
Journal
Citations
10
Refereed citations
9
Description
The Arches is one of the youngest, densest and most massive clusters in
the Galaxy. As such it provides a unique insight into the lifecycle of
the most massive stars known and the formation and survival of such
stellar aggregates in the extreme conditions of the Galactic Centre. In
a previous study we presented an initial stellar census for the Arches
and in this work we expand upon this, providing new and revised
classifications for ˜30% of the 105 spectroscopically identified
cluster members as well as distinguishing potential massive runaways.
The results of this survey emphasise the homogeneity and co-evality of
the Arches and confirm the absence of H-free Wolf-Rayets of WC sub-type
and predicted luminosities. The increased depth of our complete dataset
also provides significantly better constraints on the main sequence
population; with the identification of O9.5 V stars for the first time
we now spectroscopically sample stars with initial masses ranging from
˜16 M⊙ to ≥120 M⊙. Indeed,
following from our expanded stellar census we might expect ≳50
stars within the Arches to have been born with masses ≳60
M⊙, while all 105 spectroscopically confirmed cluster
members are massive enough to leave relativistic remnants upon their
demise. Moreover the well defined observational properties of the main
sequence cohort will be critical to the construction of an extinction
law appropriate for the Galactic Centre and consequently the
quantitative analysis of the Arches population and subsequent
determination of the cluster initial mass function.
Based on observations made at the European Southern Observatory,
Paranal, Chile under programmes ESO 087.D-0317, 091.D-0187, 093.D-0306,
099.D-0345 and 0101.D-0141.
Related projects
Physical properties and evolution of Massive Stars
This project aims at the searching, observation and analysis of massive stars in nearby galaxies to provide a solid empirical ground to understand their physical properties as a function of those key parameters that gobern their evolution (i.e. mass, spin, metallicity, mass loss, and binary interaction). Massive stars are central objects to
Sergio
Simón Díaz