No evidence for mass segregation in massive young clusters

Abstract

Aims. We investigate the validity of the mass segregation indicators commonly used in analysing young stellar clusters. Methods. We simulate observations by constructing synthetic seeing-limited images of a 1000 massive clusters (10^4 Msun) with a standard IMF and a King-density distribution function. Results. We find that commonly used indicators are highly sensitive to sample incompleteness in observational data and that radial completeness determinations do not provide satisfactory corrections, rendering the studies of radial properties highly uncertain. On the other hand, we find that, under certain conditions, the global completeness can be estimated accurately, allowing for the correction of the global luminosity and mass functions of the cluster. Conclusions. We argue that there is currently no observational evidence of mass segregation in young compact clusters since there is no robust way to differentiate between true mass segregation and sample incompleteness effects. Caution should then be exercised when interpreting results from observations as evidence of mass segregation.

10 pages, 12 figures, typos corrected. Download a high-resolution version at http://www.astro.up.pt/~jascenso/mseg_v2.pdf (1 MB)

References in corpus (8)

• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• Numerical biases on IMF determinations created by binning
• Mass segregation in young compact star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud: II. Mass Functions
• The secrets of the nearest starburst cluster: II. The present-day mass function in NGC 3603
• The Arches Cluster - Evidence for a Truncated Mass Function?
• Mass Segregation in Young Magellanic Clouds Star Clusters: Four Clusters observed with HST
• Mass Function of the Arches Cluster from Gemini Adaptive Optics Data
• Detailed analysis of open clusters: a mass function break and evidence of a fundamental plane

Cited by in corpus (45)

• Young massive star clusters
• A Universal Stellar Initial Mass Function? A Critical Look at Variations
• Star Clusters Across Cosmic Time
• The Big Problems in Star Formation: the Star Formation Rate, Stellar Clustering, and the Initial Mass Function
• Early Disc Accretion as the Origin of Abundance Anomalies in Globular Clusters
• Using the minimum spanning tree to trace mass segregation
• Mass segregation and fractal substructure in young massive clusters: (I) the McLuster code and method calibration
• Constraints on Massive Star Formation: Cygnus OB2 was always an Association
• A Census of Young Stars and Brown Dwarfs in IC 348 and NGC 1333
• Young Stellar Groups and Their Most Massive Stars
• On the origin of high-velocity runaway stars
• Importance of the Initial Conditions for Star Formation - III: Statistical Properties of Embedded Protostellar Clusters
• A MAD view of Trumpler 14
• Star formation activity and the spatial distribution and mass segregation of dense cores in the early phases of star formation
• The velocity distribution of nearby stars from Hipparcos data II. The nature of the low-velocity moving groups
• An IMF Study of the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC 4214
• The low-mass content of the massive young star cluster RCW 38
• Comparisons between different techniques for measuring mass segregation
• A highly efficient measure of mass segregation in star clusters
• A Method for Measuring Variations in the Stellar Initial Mass Function
• Mass segregation and sequential star formation in NGC 2264 revealed by Herschel
• Limits on initial mass segregation in young clusters
• Looking deep into the Rosette Nebula's heart: the (sub)stellar content of the massive young cluster NGC 2244
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury IV. A Probabilistic Approach to Inferring the High Mass Stellar Initial Mass Function and Other Power-law Functions
• The Formation of Very Massive Stars
• A revolution in star cluster research: setting the scene
• On the spatial distributions of dense cores in Orion B
• Big Fish in Small Ponds: Massive Stars in the Low Mass Clusters of M83
• The Formation and Evolution of Small Star Clusters
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Dense Core Clusters in Orion B
• Primordial mass segregation in simulations of star formation?
• Star cluster dynamics
• The Structure of the Young Star Cluster NGC 6231. II. Structure, Formation, and Fate
• Berkeley 94 and Berkeley 96: Two Young Clusters with Different Dynamical Evolution
• Four Highly Luminous Massive Star Forming Regions in the Norma Spiral Arm II. Deep NIR imaging
• The Structure of the Young Star Cluster NGC 6231. I. Stellar Population
• Young Massive Clusters: Their Population Properties, Formation and Evolution, and Their Relation to the Ancient Globular Clusters
• VLT/SPHERE deep insight of NGC 3603's core: Segregation or confusion?
• Mass Segregation of Embedded Clusters in the Milky Way
• Can star cluster environment affect dust input from massive AGB stars?
• Cluster membership analysis with supervised learning and $N$-body simulations
• The Shellless SNR B0532-67.5 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Assessment of Stellar Stratification in Three Young Star Clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• SimClust - A Program to Simulate Star Clusters
• The Future of IMF studies with the ELT and MICADO I: The local Universe as a resolved IMF laboratory