Collinder 135 and UBC 7: A Physical Pair of Open Clusters

TL;DR

This study investigates whether the open clusters Collinder 135 and UBC 7 are physically related by analyzing their stellar memberships, kinematic parameters, ages, and past trajectories using Gaia data and numerical simulations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a method combining Gaia DR2 data with numerical trajectory simulations to assess the physical association of open clusters.

Findings

Clusters are separated by about 24 pc currently.

Past orbital integration suggests they were much closer in the past.

There is only a 2% probability of chance coincidence.

Abstract

Given the closeness of the two open clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 on the sky, we investigate the possibility of the two clusters to be physically related. We aim to recover the present-day stellar membership in the open clusters Collinder 135 and UBC 7 (300 pc from the Sun), to constrain their kinematic parameters, ages and masses, and to restore their primordial phase space configuration. The most reliable cluster members are selected with our traditional method modified for the use of Gaia DR2 data. Numerical simulations use the integration of cluster trajectories backwards in time with our original high order Hermite4 code \PGRAPE. We constrain the age, spatial coordinates and velocities, radii and masses of the clusters. We estimate the actual separation of the cluster centres equal to 24 pc. The orbital integration shows that the clusters were much closer in the past if their current line-of-sight velocities are very similar and the total mass is more than 7 times larger the mass of the determined most reliable members. We conclude that the two clusters Cr 135 and UBC 7 might very well have formed a physial pair, based on the observational evidence as well as numerical simulations. The probability of a chance coincidence is only about $2\%$.