# On the physical reality of overlooked open clusters

## TL;DR

This study used multi-wavelength photometry and Gaia data to verify the reality of 15 catalogued open clusters, confirming 5 as genuine and dismissing 10 as non-physical groupings, providing their fundamental parameters.

## Contribution

The paper offers a comprehensive assessment combining photometry and Gaia data to determine the physical reality of open clusters, confirming some and refuting others previously catalogued.

## Key findings

- 5 open clusters confirmed as real physical systems.
- 10 catalogued objects found to be non-physical groupings.
- Confirmed clusters span a wide age range and are consistent with Galactic disc distribution.

## Abstract

We present UBVRI and CT1T2 photometry for fifteen catalogued open clusters of relative high brightness and compact appearance. From these unprecedented photometric data sets, covering wavelengths from the blue up to the near-infrared, we performed a thorough assessment of their reality as stellar aggregates. We statistically assigned to each observed star within the object region a probability of being a fiducial feature of that field in terms of its local luminosity function, colour distribution and stellar density. Likewise, we used accurate parallaxes and proper motions measured by the Gaia satellite to help our decision on the open cluster reality. Ten catalogued aggregates did not show any hint of being real physical systems; three of them had been assumed to be open clusters in previous studies, though. On the other hand, we estimated reliable fundamental parameters for the remaining five studied objects, which were confirmed as real open clusters. They resulted to be clusters distributed in a wide age range, 8.0 < log(t yr-1) < 9.4, of solar metal content and placed between 2.0 and 5.5 kpc from the Sun. Their ages and metallicities are in agreement with the presently known picture of the spatial distribution of open clusters in the Galactic disc.