A panchromatic view of star cluster formation in a simulated dwarf galaxy starburst

Abstract

We present a photometric analysis of star and star cluster (SC) formation in a high-resolution simulation of a dwarf galaxy starburst that allows the formation of individual stars to be followed. Previous work demonstrated that the properties of the SCs formed in the simulation are in good agreement with observations. In this paper, we create mock spectral energy distributions and broad-band photometric images using the radiative transfer code SKIRT 9. We test several observational star formation rate (SFR) tracers and find that $24$ $\mu$m, total infrared and H$\alpha$ trace the underlying SFR during the (post)starburst phase, while UV tracers yield a more accurate picture of star formation during quiescent phases prior to and after the merger. We then place the simulated galaxy at distances of $10$ and $50$ Mpc and use aperture photometry at Hubble Space Telescope resolution to analyse the simulated SC population. During the starburst phase, a hierarchically forming set of SCs leads inaccurate source separation because of crowding. This results in estimated SC mass function slopes that are up to $\sim 0.3$ shallower than the true slope of $\sim -1.9$ to $-2$ found for the bound clusters identified from the particle data in the simulation. The masses of the largest clusters are overestimated by a factor of up to $2.9$ due to unresolved clusters within the apertures. The aperture-based analysis also produces a relation between cluster formation efficiency and SFR surface density that is slightly flatter than that recovered from bound clusters. The differences are strongest in quiescent SF environments.

21 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (40)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• The effect of photo-ionization on the cooling rates of enriched, astrophysical plasmas
• A comprehensive set of simulations studying the influence of gas expulsion on star cluster evolution
• Gas expulsion and the destruction of massive young clusters
• The mass function of young star clusters in spiral galaxies
• On the Star Formation Rate - Brightest Cluster Relation: Estimating the peak SFR in post-merger galaxies
• Dust temperature and mid-to-total infrared color distributions for star-forming galaxies at 0<z<4
• Paving the way for the JWST: witnessing globular cluster formation at z>3
• The life cycle of star cluster in a tidal field
• Probing the role of the galactic environment in the formation of stellar clusters; using M83 as a test bench
• Star cluster formation in cosmological simulations. I. Properties of young clusters
• HST/STIS Spectroscopy of Five Super Star Clusters in the Starburst Galaxy M82
• Hierarchical Star Formation in the Spiral Galaxy NGC 628
• The GRIFFIN project -- Formation of star clusters with individual massive stars in a simulated dwarf galaxy starburst
• The SILCC project --- IV. Impact of dissociating and ionising radiation on the interstellar medium and Halpha emission as a tracer of the star formation rate
• Disruption of giant molecular clouds and formation of bound star clusters under the influence of momentum stellar feedback
• Radii of Young Star Clusters in Nearby Galaxies
• H-alpha emission in local galaxies: star formation, time variability and the diffuse ionized gas
• The formation of low metallicity globular clusters in dwarf galaxy mergers
• Star cluster formation in the most extreme environments: Insights from the HiPEEC survey
• The MUSE Deep Lensed Field on the Hubble Frontier Field MACS~J0416
• Star Cluster Catalogs for the LEGUS Dwarf Galaxies
• Formation and evolution of young massive clusters in galaxy mergers: the SMUGGLE view
• Complexes of triggered star formation in supergiant shell of Holmberg II
• A New Hubble Space Telescope Distance to NGC 1569: Starburst Properties and IC 342 Group Membership
• LEGUS and Halpha-LEGUS Observations of Star Clusters in NGC 4449: Improved Ages and the Fraction of Light in Clusters as a Function of Age
• Star Cluster Classification in the PHANGS-HST Survey: Comparison between Human and Machine Learning Approaches
• PHANGS-HST: New Methods for Star Cluster Identification in Nearby Galaxies
• Different Fates of Young Star Clusters After Gas Expulsion
• The challenge of simulating the star cluster population of dwarf galaxies with resolved interstellar medium
• Mass Functions of Giant Molecular Clouds and Young Star Clusters in Six Nearby Galaxies
• Lyman-αabsorption beyond the disk of simulated spiral galaxies
• Massive Star Cluster Formation and Destruction in Luminous Infrared Galaxies in GOALS
• Spectroscopy with the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) -- the NIRSpec/NIRCam GTO galaxy evolution project
• The Molecular Clouds Fueling a 1/5 Solar Metallicity Starburst
• Clumpy Star Formation and AGN Activity in Dwarf-Dwarf Galaxy Merger Mrk 709
• The Connection Between Galaxy Environment and the Luminosity Function Slopes of Star-Forming Regions
• Search for gas accretion imprints in voids: II. The galaxy Ark 18 as a result of a dwarf-dwarf merger
• Dwarf satellites of high-z Lyman Break Galaxies: a free lunch for JWST
• HETDEX [OIII] Emitters I: A spectroscopically selected low-redshift population of low-mass, low-metallicity galaxies

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Formation of star clusters and enrichment by massive stars in simulations of low-metallicity galaxies with a fully sampled initial stellar mass function
• Self-consistent dust and non-LTE line radiative transfer with SKIRT
• Star clusters forming in a low metallicity starburst -- rapid self-enrichment by (very) massive stars
• The origin of the [CII]-deficit in a simulated dwarf galaxies starburst
• Mergers all the way down: stellar collisions and kinematics of a dense hierarchically forming massive star cluster in a dwarf starburst
• Cosmic wallflowers: the circumgalactic origins of isolated ultra-compact star clusters at $z>7$
• Tight correlation of star formation with [Ci] and CO lines across cosmic time