Detection of Wolf-Rayet stars of WN and WC subtype in Super Star Clusters of NGC 5253

Abstract

We present spectroscopic observations of the central star clusters in NGC 5253 the aim of which is to search for WC stars. Our observations show the presence of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars not only of WN but also of WC subtype in two star forming regions corresponding to the maximum optical and UV emission. The massive star population we derive is consistent with young bursts of ~3 and 4 Myr. The region of maximum optical emission is found to provide the dominant contribution of the ionizing flux as opposed to the less extinguished region of maximum UV brightness. The presence of WR stars near the N-enriched regions found by Walsh & Roy (1987, 1989) and Kobulnicky et al. (1997) suggests they are a possible source of N. It is presently unclear whether or not our detection of WC stars is compatible with the normal observed He/O and C/O abundance ratios.

Accepted by ApJ Letters. 10 pages, including 2 Figures. LaTeX using aas2pp4 and psfig macros. Also available at http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/science/starburst/

References in corpus (1)

• Dust and Recent Star Formation in the Core of NGC5253

Cited by in corpus (27)

• The optical-to-radio spectral energy distributions of low-metallicity blue compact dwarf galaxies
• The intriguing HI gas in NGC 5253: an infall of a diffuse, low-metallicity HI cloud?
• Highly efficient star formation in NGC 5253 possibly from stream-fed accretion
• Massive star formation in Wolf-Rayet galaxies. III: Analysis of the O and WR populations
• A study of the interplay between ionized gas and star clusters in the central region of NGC 5253 with 2D spectroscopy
• The Very Massive Star Content of the Nuclear Star Clusters in NGC 5253
• The Brightest Young Star Clusters in NGC 5253
• Properties of Hot Stars in the Wolf-Rayet galaxy NGC5253 from ISO Spectroscopy
• Multiple superbubbles in the starburst nucleus of NGC 5253? - Implications for mass loss from dwarf galaxies
• ALMA Detects CO(3-2) within a Super Star Cluster in NGC5253
• Piecing together the puzzle of NGC 5253: abundances, kinematics and WR stars
• Chandra & XMM-Newton Observations of NGC5253. Analysis of the X-ray Emission from a Dwarf Starburst Galaxy
• The Star Cluster population of NGC 5253
• The Hamburg/SAO survey for low metallicity blue compact/HII-galaxies (HSS-LM). I. The first list of 46 strong-lined galaxies
• Chemical and stellar properties of star-forming dwarf galaxies
• VLT observations of metal-rich extra galactic HII regions. I. Massive star populations and the upper end of the IMF
• The NGC 5253 star cluster system. I. Standard modelling and infrared-excess sources
• On the formation of star clusters in the merger NGC 6240
• Integral-field near-infrared spectroscopy of two blue dwarf galaxies: NGC 5253 and He 2-10
• The Three Young Nuclear Super Star Clusters in NGC 5253
• Physical Properties of Young Stellar Populations in 24 Starburst Galaxies Observed with FUSE
• Ionized Gas Motions and the Structure of Feedback Near a Forming Globular Cluster in NGC 5253
• Extreme Star Formation
• Gas, dust, and the CO-to-molecular gas conversion factor in low-metallicity starbursts
• Chemical Enrichment from Massive Stars in Starbursts
• A constant upper luminosity limit of cool supergiant stars down to the extremely low metallicity of I Zw 18
• The heart of NGC 5253 as seen with MUSE-NFM: nitrogen enrichment through stellar chemical feedback at parsec scales