Pre-supernova feedback sets the star cluster mass function to a power law and reduces the cluster formation efficiency

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamical simulations to explore how different stellar feedback mechanisms, especially early ionizing radiation, influence the shape and efficiency of star cluster formation, aligning with observed power-law distributions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that pre-supernova feedback, particularly early ionizing radiation, shapes the cluster mass function and reduces formation efficiency, providing insights into galaxy star formation models.

Findings

Early feedback produces a power-law mass function.

Increasing feedback decreases cluster formation efficiency.

Late feedback results in a flat, log-normal-like mass function.

Abstract

The star cluster initial mass function is observed to have an inverse power law exponent around 2, yet there is no consensus on what determines this distribution, and why some variation is observed in different galaxies. Furthermore, the cluster formation efficiency covers a range of values, particularly when considering different environments. These clusters are often used to empirically constrain star formation and as fundamental units for stellar feedback models. Detailed galaxy models must therefore accurately capture the basic properties of observed clusters to be considered predictive. We use hydrodynamical simulations of a dwarf galaxy as a laboratory to study star cluster formation. We test different combinations of stellar feedback mechanisms, including stellar winds, ionizing radiation, and supernovae. Each feedback mechanism affects the cluster formation efficiency and cluster mass function. Increasing the feedback budget by combining the different types of feedback decreases the cluster formation efficiency by reducing the number of massive clusters. Ionizing radiation is found to be especially influential. This effect depends on the timing of feedback initiation, as shown by comparing early and late feedback. Early feedback occurs from ionizing radiation and stellar winds with onset immediately after a massive star is formed. Late feedback occurs when energy injection only starts after the main-sequence lifetime of the most massive SN progenitor, a timing that is further influenced by the choice of the most massive SN progenitor. Late feedback alone results in a broad, flat mass function, approaching a log-normal shape in the complete absence of feedback. Early feedback, on the other hand, produces a power-law cluster mass function with lower formation efficiency, albeit with a steeper slope than that usually observed.