Mass segregation in young clusters: observational biases

Author(s)
Joana Ascenso, João Alves, Maria Teresa V. T. Lago
Abstract

We investigate the validity of the mass-segregation indicators most commonly used in the analysis of young stellar clusters. We construct and analyze synthetic massive clusters with a standard, fully sampled stellar initial mass function and a King density distribution function.We find that the commonly used indicators are highly sensitive to the effects of incompleteness in observational data, and that completeness determinations do not provide satisfactory corrections, leading to results that may be severely biased toward mass segregation.

Organisation(s)
Department of Astrophysics
External organisation(s)
Universidade do Porto
Journal
Astrophysics and Space Science
Volume
324
Pages
113-119
ISSN
0004-640X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-009-0133-4
Publication date
12-2009
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103004 Astrophysics
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4a25a5c5-1fce-4688-9091-0df90c57469d