The star formation history of the Large Magellanic Cloud as seen by star clusters and stars

Abstract

The aim of this work is to test to what extent the star cluster population of a galaxy can be utilised to constrain or estimate the star formation history, with the Large Magellanic Cloud as our testbed. We follow two methods to extract information about the star formation rate from star clusters, either using only the most massive clusters (Maschberger & Kroupa 2007) or using the whole cluster population, albeit this is only possible for a shorter age span. We compare these results with the star formation history derived from colour-magnitude diagrams and find good overall agreement for the most recent approximately 1 Gyr. For later ages, and especially during the "cluster age gap", there is a deficiency of star clusters in relation to the star formation rate derived from the colour-magnitude diagram. The star formation rates following from the whole cluster population lie a factor of approximately 10 lower than the star formation rates deduced from the most massive clusters or from the colour-magnitude diagram, suggesting that only approximately 10 per cent of all stars form in long-lived bound star clusters.

MNRAS, in press, 9 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (3)

• On the Star Formation Rate - Brightest Cluster Relation: Estimating the peak SFR in post-merger galaxies
• The poorly constrained cluster disruption time-scale in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• A new method to derive star formation histories of galaxies from their star cluster distributions

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• Using Star Clusters as Tracers of Star Formation and Chemical Evolution: the Chemical Enrichment History of the Large Magellanic Cloud
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• Metallicity estimates of young clusters in the Magellanic Clouds from Stromgren photometry of supergiant stars
• Towards a comprehensive knowledge of the star cluster population in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Compact stellar systems in the polar ring galaxies NGC 4650A and NGC 3808B: Clues to polar disk formation
• KMHK 1762: Another star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud age gap
• Sizing the star cluster population of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Wind of Change: Faraday Rotation in a Simulated Large Magellanic Cloud