New galactic star clusters discovered in the VVV survey. Candidates projected on the inner disk and bulge

Abstract

VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) is one of six ESO Public Surveys using the 4 meter Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). The VVV survey covers the Milky Way bulge and an adjacent section of the disk, and one of the principal objectives is to search for new star clusters within previously unreachable obscured parts of the Galaxy. The primary motivation behind this work is to discover and analyze obscured star clusters in the direction of the inner Galactic disk and bulge. Regions of the inner disk and bulge covered by the VVV survey were visually inspected using composite JHKs color images to select new cluster candidates on the basis of apparent overdensities. DR1, DR2, CASU, and PSF photometry of 10x10 arcmin fields centered on each candidate cluster were used to construct color-magnitude and color-color diagrams. Follow-up spectroscopy of the brightest members of several cluster candidates was obtained in order to clarify their nature. We report the discovery of 58 new infrared cluster candidates. Fundamental parameters such as age, distance, and metallicity were determined for 20 of the most populous clusters.

arXiv comment23 pages, 20 figures and 3 tables

References in corpus (42)

• PARSEC: stellar tracks and isochrones with the PAdova and TRieste Stellar Evolution Code
• VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way
• New catalogue of optically visible open clusters and candidates
• The Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) Spectral Library: Cool Stars
• Reddening and Extinction Toward the Galactic Bulge from OGLE-III: The Inner Milky Way's Rv ~ 2.5 Extinction Curve
• VVV DR1: The First Data Release of the Milky Way Bulge and Southern Plane from the Near-Infrared ESO Public Survey VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea
• Interstellar Extinction Law toward the Galactic Center III: J, H, Ks bands in the 2MASS and the MKO systems, and 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8.0 micron in the Spitzer/IRAC system
• DAOSPEC: an automatic code for measuring equivalent widths in high-resolution stellar spectra
• A census of the Wolf-Rayet content in Westerlund 1 from near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy
• The VISTA Science Archive
• A systematic survey for infrared star clusters with |b|<20deg using 2MASS
• New infrared star clusters in the southern Milky Way with 2MASS
• A Medium Resolution Near-Infrared Spectral Atlas of O and Early B Stars
• A massive cluster of Red Supergiants at the base of the Scutum-Crux arm
• New infrared star clusters in the Northern and Equatorial Milky Way with 2MASS
• Reddening and metallicity maps of the Milky Way bulge from VVV and 2MASS II. The complete high resolution extinction map and implications for Bulge studies
• Near-Infrared Classification Spectroscopy: H-band Spectra of Fundamental MK Standards
• The GIRAFFE Inner Bulge Survey (GIBS). I. Survey Description and a kinematical map of the Milky Way bulge
• Reddening and metallicity maps of the Milky Way Bulge from VVV and 2MASS. I.The method and minor axis maps
• New Galactic Star Clusters Discovered in the VVV Survey
• The Near Infrared Ca II Triplet as Metallicity Indicator: II Extension to extremely metal-poor metallicity regimes
• Discovery of VVV CL001. A Low-Mass Globular Cluster Next to UKS~1 in the Direction of the Galactic Bulge
• An Accurate, Easy to Use Abundace Scale for Globular Clusters Based on 2.2um Spectra of Giant Stars
• Red Eyes on Wolf-Rayet Stars: 60 New Discoveries via Infrared Color Selection
• Three Galactic globular cluster candidates
• Stellar clusters in the inner Galaxy and their correlation with cold dust emission
• Testing the Accuracy of Synthetic Stellar Libraries
• The Quintuplet Cluster I. A K-band spectral catalog of stellar sources
• The fate of the pre-main sequence-rich clusters Collinder197 and vdB92: dissolution?
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey I. Presentation of the data and description of the approach
• Milky Way Demographics with the VVV Survey II. Color Transformations and Near-Infrared Photometry for 136 Million Stars in the Southern Galactic Disk
• Near- and Mid-Infrared colors of evolved stars in the Galactic plane. The Q1 and Q2 parameters
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey II. Discovery of six clusters with Wolf-Rayet stars
• Probing the RGB-phase transition: Near-IR photometry of six intermediate age LMC clusters
• Discovering Protostars and their Host Clusters via WISE
• Mining the UKIDSS GPS: star formation and embedded clusters
• Stellar sources in the ISOGAL intermediate bulge fields
• Mining the VVV: star formation and embedded clusters
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey III: A young massive cluster at the far edge of the Galactic bar
• Determining the Age of Young Embedded Clusters
• Model-Independent Diagnostics of Highly Reddened Milky Way Star Clusters: Age Calibration
• Ks-band (2.14 micron) imaging of southern massive star formation regions traced by methanol masers

Cited by in corpus (43)

• Globular clusters in the Galactic bulge
• A Multi-Band Catalog of 10978 Star Clusters, Associations and Candidates in the Milky Way
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Probes of the inner disk abundance gradient
• New PARSEC database of alpha-enhanced stellar evolutionary tracks and isochrones I. Calibration with 47 Tuc (NGC104) and the improvement on RGB bump
• FSR 1716: A new Milky Way Globular Cluster confirmed using VVV RR Lyrae stars
• Three new Galactic star clusters discovered in the field of the open cluster NGC 5999 with Gaia DR2
• Characterizing star cluster formation with WISE: 652 newly found star clusters and candidates
• The VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea eXtended (VVVX) ESO public survey: Completion of the observations and legacy
• Globular cluster candidates in the Galactic bulge: Gaia and VVV view of the latest discoveries
• Discovery of Two New Globular Clusters in the Milky Way
• The enigmatic globular cluster UKS~1 obscured by the bulge: \textit{H}-band discovery of nitrogen-enhanced stars
• Discovery of a new nearby globular cluster with extreme kinematics located in the extension of a halo stream
• Hidden in the Haystack: Low-luminosity globular clusters towards the Milky Way bulge
• Discovery of new globular clusters in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy
• New Galactic Star Clusters Discovered in the Disk Area of the VVVX Survey
• A WISE Survey of New Star Clusters in the Central Plane Region of the Milky Way
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey V. Young clusters with an OB stellar population
• Inspection of 19 globular cluster candidates in the Galactic bulge with the VVV survey
• The VVV Near-IR Galaxy Catalogue beyond the Galactic disk
• New variable stars discovered in the fields of three Galactic open clusters using the VVV Survey
• An Automated tool to detect variable sources in the Vista Variables in the V\'ıa Láctea Survey. The VVV Variables (V${}^4$) catalog of tiles d001 and d002
• Eight more low luminosity globular clusters in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy
• Triggered massive star formation associated with the bubble HII region Sh2-39 (N5)
• Near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy of the low Galactic latitude globular cluster 2MASS-GC03
• Candidate star clusters toward the inner Milky Way discovered on deep-stacked Ks-band images from the VVV Survey
• Young Stellar Clusters Containing Massive Young Stellar Objects in the VVV Survey
• Gaia-IGRINS synergy: Orbits of Newly Identified Milky Way Star Clusters
• New Candidate Planetary Nebulae in Galactic Globular Clusters from the VVV Survey
• The RR Lyrae projected density distribution from the Galactic centre to the halo
• An Intriguing Globular Cluster in the Galactic Bulge from the VVV Survey
• Massive open star clusters using the VVV survey IV. WR 62-2, a new very massive star in the core of the VVV CL041 cluster
• FSR 1776: a new globular cluster in the Galactic bulge?
• Galactic Kinematics from Data on Open Star Clusters from the MWSC Catalogue
• Small scale star formation as revealed by VVVX galactic cluster candidates
• Properties of massive stars in four clusters of the VVV survey
• Identifying two groups of massive stars aligned in the $l\sim 38^{\circ }$ Galactic direction
• Time-Series Surveys and Pulsating Stars: The Near-Infrared Perspective
• The embedded clusters DBS 77, 78, 102, and 160-161 and their link with the interstellar medium
• GeMs/GSAOI observations of La Serena 94: an old and far open cluster inside the solar circle
• Star Cluster Detection and Characterization using Generalized Parzen Density Estimation
• Spectroscopic analysis of VVV CL001 cluster with MUSE
• Revealing the stellar population of the ultra-obscured Galactic globular cluster Glimpse-C02
• Consensus based Algorithm for Nonparametric Detection of Star Clusters (CANDiSC)