Interstellar Extinction in Twenty Open Star Clusters 3 Error ∼ 0.01 Mag in V and ∼ 0.02 Mag in (B − V ), (V − R) and (V − I) While ∼ 0.03 Mag in (U − B)
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Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) c Astronomical Society of Australia 2017; published by Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/pas.2017.xxx. Interstellar extinction in twenty open star clusters Geeta Rangwal1∗, R. K. S. Yadav2†, Alok Durgapal1‡, D. Bisht3SS 1 Center of Advanced Study, Department of Physics, D. S. B. Campus, Kumaun University Nainital 263002, India. 2 Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Manora Peak, Nainital 263002, India. 3 Astronomy and Astrophysics Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad 380009, Gujarat, India. Abstract The interstellar extinction law in twenty open star clusters namely Berkeley 7, Collinder 69, Hogg 10, NGC 2362, Czernik 43, NGC 6530, NGC 6871, Bochum 10, Haffner 18, IC 4996, NGC 2384, NGC 6193, NGC 6618, NGC 7160, Collinder 232, Haffner 19, NGC 2401, NGC 6231, NGC 6823 and NGC 7380 have been studied in the optical and near-IR wavelength ranges. The difference between maximum and minimum values of E(B − V ) indicates the presence of non-uniform extinction in all the clusters except Collinder 69, NGC 2362 and NGC 2384. The colour excess ratios are consistent with a normal extinction law for the clusters NGC 6823, Haffner 18, Haffner 19, NGC 7160, NGC 6193, NGC 2401, NGC 2384, NGC 6871, NGC 7380, Berkeley 7, Collinder 69 and IC 4996. We have found that the differential color-excess ∆E(B − V ), which may be due to the occurrence of dust and gas inside the clusters, decreases with the age of the clusters. A spatial variation of color excess is found in NGC 6193 in the sense that it decreases from east to west in the cluster region. For the clusters Berkeley 7, NGC 7380 and NGC 6871, a dependence of color excess E(B − V ) with spectral class and luminosity is observed. Eight stars in Collinder 232, four stars in NGC 6530 and one star in NGC 6231 have excess flux in near-IR. This indicates that these stars may have circumstellar material around them. Keywords: Star cluster: Reddening, interstellar dust- Interstellar extinction. 1 INTRODUCTION ties of dust are wavelength dependent, so investigation of interstellar extinction law is the best way to deter- Interstellar dust is an important component of the in- mine the dust properties (Yadav & Sagar 2001, Fitz- terstellar medium. It is the remnant of star formation patrick 2004). Young open star clusters are the ideal and stellar evolution processes. Interstellar dust grains objects for this kind of study because they may con- can transmit, redirect and transmute the starlight (Fitz- tain gas and dust around early type (O, B and A) stars patrick 2004). Due to this property of dust grain the (Hayashi 1970, Larson 1973, McNamara 1976, Warner, actual distances and magnitude determination of as- Strom & Strom 1979, Yadav & Sagar 2001). tronomical objects is often very difficult (Pandey et arXiv:1711.09591v1 [astro-ph.GA] 27 Nov 2017 Trumpler studied the interstellar dust for the first al. 2002). For this reason it is very important to have time in 1920 and then it was studied by many investi- knowledge of interstellar dust in the line of sight of gators. Krelowski and Strobel (1983) analysed interstel- the objects under study. The interstellar extinction is lar extinction law in two stellar aggregates namely Sco caused by two distinct sources, a diffuse component OB2 and Per OB1 and found different extinction curves associated by the general interstellar medium and a for these two aggregates and their differences are large variable component associated with localized region of in far UV wave band. They concluded that the differ- higher mean density (Martin & Whittet 1990, Turner ences in FUV (Far-Ultra-Violet) fluxes for these fields 1994). Studies of the variable component gives informa- is due to the circumstellar dust and also confirmed the tion about the composition of stars. Extinction proper- presence of two populations of grains. Kiszkurno et al. (1984) investigated twenty large OB associations at dif- ∗ E-mail: [email protected] ferent galactic positions and found similar colour ex- †E-mail:[email protected] ‡E-mail:[email protected] cess curves in the FUV range. They also concluded that SSE-mail:[email protected] these complexes are obscured by same type of interstel- 1 2 Rangwal et al. open clusters located around l ∼ 130◦ and found that Table 1 General information about the clusters under study dust along these objects follow the normal interstellar taken from WEBDA website. NS denotes the number of stars used in the analysis. extinction law for λ ≥ λJ , but for shorter wavelengths it depends upon Rcluster (total-to-selective absorption IAU number Clusters l b Distance log(age) NS (deg) (deg) (kpc) (yr) in the cluster region). Joshi (2005) studied the distri- C0150+621 Berkeley 7 130.13 0.37 2.57 6.60 40 C0532+099 Collinder 69 195.05 -12.00 0.44 7.05 08 bution of interstellar matter near the Galactic plane on C1108-601 Hogg 10 290.80 0.07 1.77 6.78 26 C0716-248 NGC 2362 238.18 -5.54 1.39 6.91 17 the basis of 722 open star clusters and found that ∼ C2323+610 Czernik 43 112.84 0.13 2.50 7.70 24 ◦ ◦ C1801-243 NGC 6530 6.08 -1.33 1.33 6.87 33 90% of the absorbing material lies within −5 ≤ b ≤ 5 C2004+356 NGC 6871 72.64 2.08 1.57 7.00 83 C1040-588 Bochum 10 287.03 -0.32 2.03 6.85 11 of the Galactic plane. Nishiyama et al. (2005) studied C0750-262 Haffner 18 243.11 0.44 6.03 6.00 56 C2014+374 IC 4996 75.36 1.31 1.73 6.95 21 the interstellar extinction law in J, H and KS bands C0722-209 NGC 2384 235.39 -2.41 2.12 6.00 10 ◦ C1637-486 NGC 6193 336.70 -1.57 1.15 6.77 20 towards the Galactic center in the region l ≤ 2 .0 and C1817-162 NGC 6618 15.09 -0.74 1.30 6.00 11 ◦ ◦ C2152+623 NGC 7160 104.01 6.45 0.79 7.28 14 0 .5 ≤ b ≤ 1 .0 using Red Clump (RC) stars and con- C1042-59 Collinder 232 287.49 -0.54 2.99 6.67 26 C0750-261 Haffner 19 243.08 0.52 5.09 6.93 41 cluded that the extinction law is not universal even in C0727-138 NGC 2401 229.66 1.85 6.30 7.40 33 C1650-417 NGC 6231 243.46 1.18 1.24 6.84 123 the infra-red band. C1941+231 NGC 6823 59.40 -0.14 1.89 6.82 77 C2245+578 NGC 7380 107.14 -0.88 2.22 7.08 88 In the light of above discussions, we can say that there are numerous studies available regarding the interstel- lar extinction in the direction of different objects. But, lar material. Sagar (1987) studied interstellar extinction yet there are number of clusters for which less infor- in 15 open star clusters and found non-uniform extinc- mation is available about the distribution of dust and tion across 10 of the clusters. When the value of the gas in our Galaxy. In order to study the distribution of inferred colour excess varies from one part of cluster dust and gas in the Milky Way, we need to consider dif- region to another one, this is known as non-uniform ex- ferent young open star clusters. Therefore, we have in tinction. The possible reasons behind the non-uniform this study considered twenty open star clusters to study extinction has been discussed by many investigators. interstellar extinction law in the optical and near-IR Sagar (1987) and Sagar & Qian (1989) stated that this bands. non-uniformity is due to the hot and ionised circumstel- The structure of the article is as follows. Section 2 lar dust around the stars. Samson (1975), McCuskey & describes the data sources and cluster selection criteria. Hauk (1964) and Stone (1977) proposed that dust shells Section 3 describes the data analysis while Section 4 around stars and local dust clouds lying in the clus- represents the conclusions of the present study. ter direction is responsible for non-uniform extinction. Tapia et al. (1988) studied the extinction law in clusters 2 Cluster selection and data set using 200 stars located within four open clusters situ- ated at same distance from the Sun. They found that To study the extinction properties in the clusters, these clusters have different reddening values and that we have selected twenty young open star clusters they follow the normal extinction law for λ> 0.55 µm. from the WEBDA database, which have age younger They also interpreted the anomalies of the extinction than 50 Myr. The selection criteria of these clusters law in then U and B bands because of the presence of is based on the availability of UBVRI photometric dense intra-cluster dust cloud of different grain prop- data and previous studies on extinction. These clus- erties in comparision with normal dust grains. Cardelli ters have been considered first time for interstellar ex- et al. (1989) derived the mean extinction law for the tinction study. These clusters have distances ranging wavelength range 0.12 µm ≤ λ ≤ 3.5 µm. This extinc- from 0.44 kpc to 6.3 kpc. In young open star clusters, tion law is applicable for the diffuse as well as the dense the early type stars may have dust and gas around interstellar medium and depends only on one parameter them. Therefore, for the present analysis we have se- RV , the total to selective extinction ratio.