The origin and orbit of the old, metal-rich, open cluster NGC 6791: Insights from kinematics

TL;DR

This study investigates the origin of NGC 6791, a unique old, metal-rich open cluster, by simulating its orbit within the Milky Way to assess if it migrated from the inner disk, concluding the migration scenario is possible but unlikely.

Contribution

The paper models NGC 6791's orbit considering non-axisymmetric Galactic features, providing new insights into its possible inward origin and migration history.

Findings

Strong bar and spiral arm perturbations can cause inward migration.

The probability of NGC 6791 originating from the inner disk is very low.

Orbital parameters align with observations under certain migration scenarios.

Abstract

NGC 6791 is a unique stellar system among Galactic open clusters being at the same time one of the oldest open clusters and the most metal rich. Combination of its properties is puzzling and poses question of its origin. One possible scenario is that the cluster formed close to the Galactic Center and later migrated outwards to its current location. In this work we study the cluster's orbit and investigate the possible migration processes which might have displaced NGC 6791 to its present-day position, under the assumption that it actually formed in the inner disk. To this aim we performed integrations of NGC 6791's orbit in a potential consistent with the main Milky Way parameters. In addition to analytical expressions for halo, bulge and disk, we also consider the effect of bar and spiral arm perturbations, which are expected to be very important for the disk dynamical evolution, especially inside the solar circle. Starting from state-of-the art initial conditions for NGC 6791, we calculate 1000 orbits back in time for about 1 Gyr turning on and off different non-axisymmetric components of the global potential. We then compare statistical estimates of the cluster's recent orbital parameters with the orbital parameters of 10^4 test-particles originating close to the Galactic Center (having initial galocentric radii in the range of 3-5 kpc) and undergoing radial migration during 8 Gyr of forward integration. We find that a model which incorporates a strong bar and spiral arm perturbations can indeed be responsible for the migration of NGC 6791 from the inner disk (galocentric radii of 3-5 kpc) to its present-day location. Such a model can provide orbital parameters which are close enough to the observed ones. However, the probability of this scenario as it results from our investigations is very low.