Deep Washington photometry of inconspicuous star cluster candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud

S. CHOUDHURY, A. SUBRAMANIAM, A.E. PIATTI

ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 149 p. 52 - 73

0004-6256

We present deep Washington photometry of 45 poorly populated star clustercandidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We have performed a systematicstudy to estimate the parameters of the cluster candidates by matching theoreticalisochrones to the cleaned and de-reddened cluster color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs).We were able to estimate the basic parameters for 33 clusters, out of which, 23 areidentied as single clusters and 10 are found to be members of double clusters. Other12 cluster candidates have been classied as possible clusters/asterisms. About 50% ofthe true clusters are in the 100-300 Myr age range, while some are older or younger.We have discussed the distribution of age, location, reddening with respect to eld aswell as size of true clusters. The sizes and masses of the studied sample are found to besimilar to that of open clusters in the Milky Way. Our study adds to the lower endof cluster mass distribution in the LMC, suggesting that the LMC apart fromhosting rich clusters also has formed small, less massive open clusters in the 100-300Myr age range.