Age and Extinction of the Ultraviolet Emitting Regions in M82

TL;DR

This study analyzes the age and extinction of UV-emitting regions in M82, revealing that nuclear clusters dominate UV emission while disk stars likely originated from clusters, shedding light on star formation and stellar evolution in this galaxy.

Contribution

It provides new measurements of age, extinction, and UV flux contribution of stellar clusters in M82's nucleus and disk using multi-band imaging.

Findings

Nuclear clusters emit all observed UV flux.

Disk clusters contribute less than 10% to UV flux.

Field stars in the disk likely originated from stellar clusters.

Abstract

The M82 galaxy has been the subject of several studies basically because it is relatively close to to the Milky Way and it displays a strong star formation activity. Using multi-band images of M82 we have determined the age and extinction of the stellar population located in regions with strong UV emission, these region are in the nucleus and the disk of M82. We also have employed the UV images of M82 and the physical properties of its stellar clusters to measure the contribution of the clusters to the detected UV flux. We found that clusters located in the nuclear regions are emitting all the observed UV flux, whereas clusters of the disk emit less than ~10%. Based on the results obtained from this work we can infer that the field stars located in the disk of M82 could have been part of a stellar cluster when they were born.