The disintegrating old open cluster Czernik 3

Abstract

We have performed a detailed analysis of the Czernik 3 (Cz3) open cluster by using deep near-infrared photometry taken with TIRCAM2 on 3.6m Devasthal optical telescope along with the recently available high quality proper motion data from the {\it Gaia} DR2 and deep photometric data from Pan-STARRS1. The cluster has a highly elongated morphology with fractal distribution of stars. The core and cluster radii of the cluster are estimated as 0.5 pc and 1.2 pc, respectively. We have identified 45 stars as cluster members using the {\it Gaia} proper motion data. The distance and age of the cluster are found to be $3.5\pm 0.9$ kpc and $0.9_{-0.1}^{+0.3}$ Gyr, respectively. The slope of the mass function $‘{\Gamma }^{\prime }$ in the cluster region, in the mass range $\sim$0.95$<$M/M${}_{\odot }$$<$2.2, is found to be $-1.01\pm 0.43$. The cluster shows the signatures of mass-segregation and is dynamically relaxed (dynamical age=10 Myr). This along with its small size, big tidal radius, low density/large separation of stars, and elongated and distorted morphology, indicate that the Cz3 is a loosely bound disintegrating cluster under the influence of external tidal interactions.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal, 15 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. Text updated

References in corpus (25)

• The Gaia mission
• A Spitzer Survey of Young Stellar Clusters within One Kiloparsec of the Sun: Cluster Core Extraction and Basic Structural Analysis
• The Optical to Mid-Infrared Extinction Law Based on the APOGEE, Gaia DR2, Pan-STARRS1, SDSS, APASS, 2MASS and WISE Surveys
• Star cluster disruption by giant molecular clouds
• Dynamical mass segregation on a very short timescale
• Age determination for 269 $Gaia$ DR2 Open Clusters
• Using the minimum spanning tree to trace mass segregation
• Constraining the thermally-pulsing asymptotic giant branch phase with resolved stellar populations in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Lifetimes of tidally limited star clusters with different radii
• ASteCA - Automated Stellar Cluster Analysis
• Wide Field CCD photometry around nine open clusters
• Discovery of Tidal Tails in Disrupting Open Clusters: Coma Berenices and a Neighbor Stellar Group
• Structure and mass segregation in Galactic stellar clusters
• Star formation in young star cluster NGC 1893
• The bound fraction of young star clusters
• Dynamics versus structure: breaking the density degeneracy in star formation
• Core Mass Function: The Role of Gravity
• Diagnosing the Stellar Population and Tidal Structure of the Blanco1 Star Cluster
• Mass functions and photometric binaries in nine open clusters
• A multiwavelength study of embedded clusters in W5-east, NGC7538, S235, S252 and S254-S258
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Properties of the intermediate age open cluster NGC 4815
• The stellar contents and star formation in the NGC 7538 region
• A proper motions study of the globular cluster NGC 3201
• Large scale star formation in Auriga region
• TIRCAM2: The TIFR Near Infrared Imaging Camera

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Gaia 20eae: A newly discovered episodically accreting young star
• Sh 2-301: a blistered H II region undergoing star formation
• TIFR Treasures for Astronomy from Ground to Space