The Quintuplet Cluster: Extended Structure and Tidal Radius

Abstract

The Quintuplet star cluster is one of only three known young (< 10 Myr) massive (M > 10 4 M ) clusters within ∼ 100 pc of the Galactic Center. In order to explore star cluster formation and evolution in this extreme environment, we analyze the Quintuplet's dynamical structure. Using the HST WFC3-IR instrument, we take astrometric and photometric observations of the Quintuplet covering a 120 × 120 field-of-view, which is 19 times larger than those of previous proper motion studies of the Quintuplet. We generate a catalog of the Quintuplet region with multi-band, near-infrared photometry, proper motions, and cluster membership probabilities for 10, 543 stars. We present the radial density profile of 715 candidate Quintuplet cluster members with M 4.7 M out to 3.2 pc from the cluster center. A 3σ lower limit of 3 pc is placed on the tidal radius, indicating the lack of a tidal truncation within this radius range. Only weak evidence for mass segregation is found, in contrast to the strong mass segregation found in the Arches cluster, a second and slightly younger massive cluster near the Galactic Center. It is possible that tidal stripping hampers a mass segregation signature, though we find no evidence of spatial asymmetry. Assuming that the Arches and Quintuplet formed with comparable extent, our measurement of the Quintuplet's comparatively large core radius of 0.62 +0.10 −0.10 pc provides strong empirical evidence that young massive clusters in the Galactic Center dissolve on a several Myr timescale.

Early formation and recent starburst activity in the nuclear disk of the Milky Way

“…The two Gaussians correspond to the double RC feature that appears in the CMD. The Double Red Clump is also clearly detected in the region around the Quintuplet cluster by recently published HST observations 33 .…”

Radio observations of massive stars in the Galactic centre: The Arches Cluster

“…The systematic noise and the ionised gas can give rise to numerous spurious detections, even at 5 σ above the rms noise. Therefore, we compared the positions of detected radio point sources in our 2016 X-band image with the positions of stars on an HST/WFC3 F153M image of the Quintuplet cluster (Rui et al 2019), downloaded from the HST archive 4 . All radio stars must necessarily be very bright infrared sources (massive, young stars) that are detected at S/N ratios exceeding a few times 100.…”

Photometric and kinematic study of the three intermediate age open clusters NGC 381, NGC 2360, and Berkeley 68

“…are from Cantat-Gaudin et al (2018) fields sometimes cause a star cluster to have longer dynamical relaxation time and a lower degree of mass segregation by reducing star cluster expansion ability. Tidal stripping also plays a role in reducing observation of mass segregation by preferentially removing low mass stars from the outskirts of the tidally perturbed cluster (Webb & Vesperini 2018;Rui et al 2019). Further studies are required to draw a firm conclusion whether mass segregation is a result of dynamic evolution or an imprint of star formation process itself (Parker et al 2016).…”