2018MNRAS.474.3582L -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 474, 3582-3592 (2018/March-1)
A clustered origin for isolated massive stars.
LUCAS W.E., RYBAK M., BONNELL I.A. and GIELES M.
Abstract (from CDS):
High-mass stars are commonly found in stellar clusters promoting the idea that their formation occurs due to the physical processes linked with a young stellar cluster. It has recently been reported that isolated high-mass stars are present in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Due to their low velocities, it has been argued that these are high-mass stars which formed without a surrounding stellar cluster. In this paper, we present an alternative explanation for the origin of these stars in which they formed in a cluster environment but are subsequently dispersed into the field as their natal cluster is tidally disrupted in a merger with a higher mass cluster. They escape the merged cluster with relatively low velocities typical of the cluster interaction and thus of the larger scale velocity dispersion, similarly to the observed stars. N-body simulations of cluster mergers predict a sizeable population of low-velocity (<=20 km s–1), high-mass stars at distances of >20 pc from the cluster. High-mass clusters in which gas poor mergers are frequent would be expected to commonly have haloes of young stars, including high-mass stars, which were actually formed in a cluster environment.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
Journal keyword(s):
stars: formation - stars: luminosity function, mass function - stars: massive - open clusters and associations: general
Simbad objects:
4
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