| | |
| | |
Stat |
Members: 3645 Articles: 2'501'711 Articles rated: 2609
19 April 2024 |
|
| | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
Obscured star formation in the central region of the dwarf galaxy NGC5253 | Almudena Alonso-Herrero
; Toshinobu Takagi
; Andrew J. Baker
; George H. Rieke
; Marcia J. Rieke
; Masatoshi Imanishi
; Nick Z. Scoville
; | Date: |
5 May 2004 | Journal: | Astrophys.J. 612 (2004) 222-237 | Subject: | astro-ph | Abstract: | We present HST/NICMOS observations (1.1-2.2micron) and 1.9-4.1micron spectroscopy of the central region of the dwarf galaxy NGC5253. The HST/NICMOS observations reveal the presence of a nuclear double star cluster separated by 0.3-0.4arcsec or 6-8pc (for a distance d=4.1Mpc). The double star cluster, also a bright double source of Pa-alpha emission, appears to be coincident with the double radio nebula detected at 1.3cm. The eastern near-infrared star cluster (C1) is identified with the youngest optical cluster, whereas the western star cluster (C2), although it is almost completely obscured in the optical, becomes the brightest star cluster in the central region of NGC 5253 at wavelengths longer than 2micron. Both clusters are extremely young with ages of approximately 3.5 million years old. C2 is more massive than C1 by a factor of 6 to 20 (M(C2)= 7.7 x 10^5 - 2.6 x 10^6Msun, for a Salpeter IMF in the mass range 0.1-100Msun). Analysis of the circumnuclear spectrum excluding C1 and C2, as well as of a number of other near-infrared selected clusters with a range of (young) ages, suggests that the star formation was triggered across the central regions of the galaxy. We have also modelled the nuclear UV to mid-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) of NGC5253 and found that the infrared part is well modelled with a highly obscured (A_V= 17mag) young starburst with a stellar mass consistent with our photometric estimates for C1 and C2. The SED model predicts a moderately bright polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature at 3.3micron that is not detected in our nuclear L-band spectrum. NGC5253’s low metallicity and a top-heavy IMF likely combine to suppress the 3.3micron PAH emission that is commonly seen in more massive starburst systems. | Source: | arXiv, astro-ph/0405093 | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
|
| |
|
|
|
| News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |