Understanding the Effect of Environment on Cluster Formation

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

The investigators use telescopes to make infrared images of nearby molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy. Since these clouds are more transparent in infrared images, the investigators have discovered many stars are forming in these clouds. They believe most of the stars in our galaxy were formed in clouds very similar to these. How these stars form remains a mystery. The investigators will make an important step towards unraveling this mystery by measuring the properties of embedded star clusters in this companion dwarf galaxy orbiting our Milky Way galaxy. The broader impact of this proposal is the University of Florida (UF) Astronomy BRIDGES program and the continuation of our outreach program in local elementary schools. The BRIDGES program facilitates the transfer of underrepresented Hispanic students in the STEM fields from Miami-Dade College, the largest community college in Florida, to four-year institutions by providing academic activities, mentoring, and social connections with UF Hispanic faculty members, UF students in physics and astronomy, and UF senior transfer students. The program will include multilingual workshops about careers in physics and astronomy, opportunities to do research in astronomy and present results at scientific meetings, and visits to UF and the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures. This outreach program will be conducted throughout the county, targeting schools with low performance in math and science, most of which are in areas with high percentage of minority students. The investigators are conducting the first sensitive, systematic, infrared imaging survey for embedded clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using the VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey Data. The data will be used to identify young embedded clusters within the LMC molecular clouds and thereby create the most comprehensive survey of very young embedded clusters in molecular clouds in a galaxy other than the Milky Way. In fact, it will represent the largest and most uniform survey for embedded clusters in star forming molecular clouds ever done in any galaxy including our own. In addition to determining the number of embedded clusters the proposed data will be used to characterize their properties, such as their sizes, total masses, total luminosities, mass distribution and birthrate.