Astrometric and photometric initial mass functions from the UKIDSS Galactic Clusters Survey: III Praesepe

TL;DR

This study uses UKIDSS data to analyze the initial mass function of Praesepe, revealing a decreasing trend at lower masses and differences from previous studies, with implications for understanding stellar populations in clusters.

Contribution

First wide-field near-infrared study of Praesepe's mass function using UKIDSS, providing new insights into its stellar and substellar populations and their comparison with other clusters.

Findings

Praesepe's mass function decreases towards lower masses.

Binary fraction varies across different mass ranges.

Praesepe's mass function resembles alpha Per more than Hyades.

Abstract

Over the past decades open clusters have been the subject of many studies. Such studies are crucial considering that the universality of the Initial Mass Function is still a subject of current investigations. Praesepe is an interesting open cluster for the study of the stellar and substellar mass function (MF), considering its intermediate age and its nearby distance. Here we present the results of a wide field, near-infrared study of Praesepe using the Data Release 9 (DR9) of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Galactic Clusters Survey (GCS). We obtained cluster candidates of Praesepe based on a 3sigma astrometric and 5 band photometric selection. We derived a binary frequency for Praesepe of 25.6+/-3.0% in the 0.2-0.45Msol mass range, 19.6+/-3.0% for 0.1-0.2Msol, and 23.2+/-5.6% for 0.07-0.1Msol. We also studied the variability of the cluster candidates of Praesepe and we conclude that seven objects could be variable. We inferred the luminosity function of Praesepe in the Z- and J- bands and derived its MF. We observe that our determination of the MF of Praesepe differs from previous studies: while previous MFs present an increase from 0.6 to 0.1Msol, our MF shows a decrease. We looked at the MF of Praesepe in two different regions of the cluster, i.e. within and beyond 1.25deg, and we observed that both regions present a MF which decrease to lower masses. We compared our results with the Hyades, the Pleiades and alpha Per MF in the mass range of 0.072-0.6Msol and showed that the Praesepe MF is more similar to alpha Per although they are respectively aged ~85 and ~600Myr. Even though of similar age, the Praesepe remains different than the Hyades, with a decrease in the MF of only ~0.2 dex from 0.6 down to 0.1Msol, compared to ~1 dex for the Hyades.