GOALS-JWST: Constraining the Emergence Timescale for Massive Star Clusters in NGC 3256
Journal article, 2024
We present the results of a James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam and NIRSpec investigation into the young massive star cluster (YMC) population of NGC 3256, the most cluster-rich luminous infrared galaxy in the Great Observatories All Sky LIRG Survey. We detect 3061 compact YMC candidates with a signal-to-noise ratio 3 at F150W, F200W, and F335M. Based on yggdrasil stellar population models, we identify 116/3061 sources with F150W – F200W > 0.47 and F200W – F355M > −1.37 colors, suggesting that they are young (t ≼ 5 Myr), dusty (AV = 5−15), and massive (Me > 105). This increases the sample of dust-enshrouded YMCs detected in this system by an order of magnitude relative to previous Hubble Space Telescope studies. With NIRSpec integral field unit pointings centered on the northern and southern nucleus, we extract the Paα and 3.3 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) equivalent widths for eight bright and isolated YMCs. Variations in both the F200W – F335M color and 3.3 μm PAH emission with the Paα line strength suggest a rapid dust clearing (<3−4 Myr) for the emerging YMCs in the nuclei of NGC 3256. Finally, with both the age and dust emission accurately measured, we use yggdrasil to derive the color excess (E(B − V)) for all eight YMCs. We demonstrate that YMCs with strong 3.3 μm PAH emission (F200W – F335M > 0) correspond to sources with E(B − V) > 3, which are typically missed in UV-optical studies. This underscores the importance of deep near-infrared imaging for finding and characterizing these very young and dust-embedded sources.
Star forming regions (1565)
Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Young star clusters (1833)
Luminous infrared galaxies (946)
Starburst galaxies (1570)
Stellar feedback (1602)
Author
S. T. Linden
University of Arizona
Thomas Lai
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Aaron S. Evans
University of Virginia
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Lee Armus
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
K. Larson
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Jeff Rich
Carnegie Observatories
U. Vivian
University of California at Irvine (UCI)
G. Privon
University of Virginia
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
H. Inami
Hiroshima University
Y. Song
European Southern Observatory Santiago
Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA)
Marina Bianchin
University of California at Irvine (UCI)
Thomas Bohn
Hiroshima University
Victorine A. Buiten
Leiden University
Maria Sanchez-García
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
Justin A. Kader
University of California at Irvine (UCI)
Laura Lenkić
NASA Ames Research Center
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Anne M. Medling
University of Toledo
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics
T. Boker
European Space Agency (ESA)
T. Diaz-Santos
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
European University Cyprus
V. Charmandaris
European University Cyprus
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
University of Crete
Loreto Barcos-Munoz
University of Virginia
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
P. van der Werf
Leiden University
S. Stierwalt
Occidental College
Susanne Aalto
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics
P. Appleton
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Christopher C. Hayward
Flatiron Institute
Justin Howell
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
M. A. Malkan
University of California
J. Mazzarella
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
E. J. Murphy
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
J. A. Surace
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Astrophysical Journal Letters
2041-8205 (ISSN) 2041-8213 (eISSN)
Vol. 974 2 L27Subject Categories
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/ad7eae