STAR CLUSTER POPULATIONS IN THE OUTER DISKS OF NEARBY GALAXIES

摘要

We present a Large Binocular Telescope imaging study that characterizes the star cluster component of nearby galaxy outer disks (beyond the optical radius R 25). Expanding on the pilot project of Herbert-Fort et al., we present deep (~27.5 mag V-band point-source limiting magnitude) U- and V-band imaging of six galaxies: IC 4182, NGC?3351, NGC?4736, NGC?4826, NGC?5474, and NGC?6503. We find that the outer disk of each galaxy is populated with marginally resolved star clusters with masses ~103 M ☉ and ages up to ~1?Gyr (masses and ages are limited by the depth of our imaging and uncertainties are large given how photometry can be strongly affected by the presence or absence of a few stars in such low-mass systems), and that they are typically found out to at least 2 R 25 but sometimes as far as 3-4 R 25—even beyond the apparent H I disk. The mean rate of cluster formation for 1 R 25 ≤ R ≤ 1.5 R 25 is at least one every ~2.5?Myr and the clusters are spatially correlated with the H I, most strongly with higher density gas near the periphery of the optical disk and with lower density neutral gas at the H I disk periphery. We hypothesize that the clusters near the edge of the optical disk are formed in the extension of spiral structure from the inner disk and are a fairly consistent phenomenon and that the clusters formed at the periphery of the H I disk are the result of accretion episodes.