MOCCA Code for Star Cluster Simulation: Comparison with Optical Observations using COCOA

TL;DR

This paper presents COCOA, a new tool for comparing star cluster simulations with observations, demonstrating its effectiveness in matching simulated and observed cluster parameters after 12 Gyrs.

Contribution

Introduction of COCOA code for rapid comparison of star cluster simulation results with observational data, facilitating validation of models.

Findings

Cluster parameter similarity depends on observational data quality.

Photometric accuracy significantly affects comparison results.

COCOA enables effective parameter extraction from simulated and observed clusters.

Abstract

We introduce and present preliminary results from COCOA (Cluster simulatiOn Comparison with ObservAtions) code for a star cluster after 12 Gyrs of evolution simulated using the MOCCA code. The COCOA code is being developed to quickly compare results of numerical simulations of star clusters with observational data. We use COCOA to obtain parameters of the projected cluster model. For comparison, a FITS file of the projected cluster was provided to observers so that they could use their observational methods and techniques to obtain cluster parameters. The results show that the similarity of cluster parameters obtained through numerical simulations and observations depends significantly on the quality of observational data and photometric accuracy.