Open clusters and the galactic disk

Abstract

It is textbook knowledge that open clusters are conspicuous members of the thin disk of our Galaxy, but their role as contributors to the stellar population of the disk was regarded as minor. Starting from a homogenous stellar sky survey, the ASCC-2.5, we revisited the population of open clusters in the solar neighbourhood from scratch. In the course of this enterprise we detected 130 formerly unknown open clusters, constructed volume- and magnitude-limited samples of clusters, re-determined distances, motions, sizes, ages, luminosities and masses of 650 open clusters. We derived the present-day luminosity and mass functions of open clusters (not the stellar mass function in open clusters), the cluster initial mass function CIMF and the formation rate of open clusters. We find that open clusters contributed around 40 percent to the stellar content of the disk during the history of our Galaxy. Hence, open clusters are important building blocks of the Galactic disk.

7 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (2)

• On the origin of field O-type stars
• Why Simple Stellar Population models do not reproduce the colours of Galactic open clusters

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Evidence of Environmental Dependencies of Type Ia Supernovae from the Nearby Supernova Factory indicated by Local Hα
• Barium and Yttrium abundance in intermediate-age and old open clusters
• Heterogeneity of the Population of Open Star Clusters in the Galaxy
• Abundances and kinematics for ten anticentre open clusters
• Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way -- VII. Tidal parameters and mass function
• Roche volume filling and the dissolution of open star clusters
• A UBVI and uvbyCaHbeta Analysis of the Intermediate-Age Open Cluster, NGC 5822
• A revisited study of Cepheids in open clusters in the Gaia era
• Two paths of cluster evolution: global expansion versus core collapse
• Calibration of radii and masses of open clusters with a simulation