Young star clusters in circumnuclear starburst rings

TL;DR

This study investigates the luminosity functions of young star clusters in circumnuclear starburst rings of three galaxies, revealing that their formation follows a power-law distribution similar to other environments, despite the violent conditions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the CLFs of young clusters in starburst rings, confirming their power-law nature and addressing technical challenges in data analysis.

Findings

CLFs follow a power-law distribution down to completeness limits.

Star cluster formation in starburst rings is similar to other environments.

Technical issues in data conversion are thoroughly examined.

Abstract

We analyse the cluster luminosity functions (CLFs) of the youngest star clusters in three galaxies exhibiting prominent circumnuclear starburst rings. We focus specifically on NGC 1512 and NGC 6951, for which we have access to H$\alpha$ data that allow us to unambiguously identify the youngest sample clusters. To place our results on a firm statistical footing, we first explore in detail a number of important technical issues affecting the process from converting the observational data into the spectral-energy distributions of the objects in our final catalogues. The CLFs of the young clusters in both galaxies exhibit approximate power-law behaviour down to the 90 per cent observational completeness limits, thus showing that star cluster formation in the violent environments of starburst rings appears to proceed similarly as that elsewhere in the local Universe. We discuss this result in the context of the density of the interstellar medium in our starburst-ring galaxies.