Mirror images of lensed star clusters with mismatched spectral energy distributions: A possible signature of top-heavy stellar initial mass functions and extreme stars in high-redshift star clusters

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gravitational microlensing can cause observable differences in the spectral energy distributions of mirror-image lensed star clusters, potentially revealing the presence of top-heavy stellar initial mass functions in high-redshift clusters.

Contribution

It demonstrates that mismatched mirror-image SEDs can occur due to microlensing effects, especially in young, low-mass star clusters with top-heavy initial mass functions, offering a new probe of early stellar populations.

Findings

Mismatched SEDs are detectable in clusters with mass < 10^5 M_sun and age < 5 Myr.

Higher probability of mismatched SEDs if the stellar initial mass function is top-heavy.

Such discrepancies can serve as indicators of extreme stellar populations in the early Universe.

Abstract

Strongly lensed star clusters have recently been detected up to redshift $z\approx 10$ in galaxy cluster fields using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). When pairs of mirror images of such star clusters appear across the lensing critical curve, it is usually assumed that both images will display identical spectral energy distributions (SEDs). However, this assumption may be invalidated in the presence of gravitational microlensing from stars or other compact objects in the lens, since microlensing will affect the SED contribution from bright stars within the star cluster independently in the two mirror images. Here, we explore under what circumstances mismatched mirror-image SEDs are likely to be observable, and argue that SED differences detectable in JWST observations of lensing-cluster fields will be limited to star clusters of mass $< 10^5\ M_\odot$ and ages $\lesssim 5$ Myr. The probability of severely mismatched mirror-image SEDs increases if the stellar initial mass function is very top-heavy and extends to stellar masses $\gg 100\ M_\odot$, as has been suggested to be the case for Population III stars. The prevalence of lensed star clusters with highly discrepant mirror-image SEDs could therefore serve as a probe of very massive stars and extreme stellar populations in the early Universe.