Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Stolte, Andrea
• K. Grebel, Eva
• Brandner, Wolfgang
• F. Figer, Donald

Titel

Infrared Imaging of the Arches Cluster - Adaptive Optics in the Densest Region of the Milky Way

Ist Teil von

• Symposium - International Astronomical Union, 2002, Vol.207, p.132-134

Erscheinungsjahr

2002

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Arches cluster - located only 11′ from the Galactic Center (GC) - is one of the densest and richest young star clusters in the Milky Way. With an age of only about 2 Myr, it is ideally suited to study massive cluster formation in an extreme environment. We find an IMF slope of Γ = −0.77 from 5 to 100 M ⊙ , in good agreement with the results from HST/NICMOS from Figer et al. (1999). The limiting factor in the dense cluster center is crowding. With the new AO systems, high resolution analysis of the dense cluster region combined with very deep infrared photometry is available. We have analysed deep H and K′ images of the cluster center obtained with the GEMINI/Hokupa'a adaptive optics system. Colour-magnitude diagrams and the IMF are constructed from these data. A comparison with isochrones yields the mass function.