A Comprehensive HST BVI Catalogue Of Star Clusters In Five Hickson Compact Groups Of Galaxies

Abstract

We present a photometric catalogue of star cluster candidates in Hickson compact groups (HCGs) 7, 31, 42, 59, and 92, based on observations with the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The catalogue contains precise cluster positions (right ascension and declination), magnitudes, and colours in the BVI filters. The number of detected sources ranges from 2200 to 5600 per group, from which we construct the high-confidence sample by applying a number of criteria designed to reduce foreground and background contaminants. Furthermore, the high-confidence cluster candidates for each of the 16 galaxies in our sample are split into two sub-populations: one that may contain young star clusters and one that is dominated by globular older clusters. The ratio of young star cluster to globular cluster candidates varies from group to group, from equal numbers to the extreme of HCG 31 which has a ratio of 8 to 1, due to a recent starburst induced by interactions in the group. We find that the number of blue clusters with $M_V<-9$ correlates well with the current star formation rate in an individual galaxy, while the number of globular cluster candidates with $M_V<-7.8$ correlates well (though with large scatter) with the stellar mass. Analyses of the high-confidence sample presented in this paper show that star clusters can be successfully used to infer the gross star formation history of the host groups and therefore determine their placement in a proposed evolutionary sequence for compact galaxy groups.

44 pages, 19 figures, 9 tables

References in corpus (13)

• HyperLEDA. III. The catalogue of extragalactic distances
• Globular Cluster Systems in Giant Ellipticals: the Mass/Metallicity Relation
• ACS imaging of star clusters in M51. I. Identification and radius distribution
• The Infrared Properties of Hickson Compact Groups
• Global Properties of the Globular Cluster Systems of Four Spiral Galaxies
• The Luminosity Function of Star Clusters in 20 Star-Forming Galaxies Based on Hubble Legacy Archive Photometry
• Compact groups in theory and practice - I. The spatial properties of compact groups
• The AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies. XI. Optical characterisation of nuclear activity
• The K luminosity-metallicity relation for dwarf galaxies and the tidal dwarf galaxies in the tails of HCG 31
• Herschel observations of Hickson compact groups of galaxies: Unveiling the properties of cold dust
• The Dwarf Galaxy Population in Nearby Groups. The data
• The Snapshot Hubble U-Band Cluster Survey (SHUCS) II. Star Cluster Population of NGC 2997
• Some Like It Hot: Linking Diffuse X-ray Luminosity, Baryonic Mass, and Star Formation Rate in Compact Groups of Galaxies

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Searching for intergalactic star forming regions in Stephan's Quintet with SITELLE: II. Physical properties and metallicity