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Free, publicly-accessible full text available November 1, 2024
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Nitrogen-enriched, Highly Pressurized Nebular Clouds Surrounding a Super Star Cluster at Cosmic Noon
Abstract Strong lensing offers a precious opportunity for studying the formation and early evolution of super star clusters that are rare in our cosmic backyard. The Sunburst Arc, a lensed Cosmic Noon galaxy, hosts a young super star cluster with escaping Lyman continuum radiation. Analyzing archival Hubble Space Telescope images and emission line data from Very Large Telescope/MUSE and X-shooter, we construct a physical model for the cluster and its surrounding photoionized nebula. We confirm that the cluster is ≲4 Myr old, is extremely massive
M ⋆∼ 107M ⊙, and yet has a central component as compact as several parsecs, and we find a gas-phase metallicityZ = (0.22 ± 0.03)Z ⊙. The cluster is surrounded by ≳105M ⊙of dense clouds that have been pressurized toP ∼ 109K cm−3by perhaps stellar radiation at within 10 pc. These should have large neutral columnsN HI> 1022.8cm−2to survive rapid ejection by radiation pressure. The clouds are likely dusty as they show gas-phase depletion of silicon, and may be conducive to secondary star formation ifN HI> 1024cm−2or if they sink farther toward the cluster center. Detecting strong [Niii ]λ λ 1750,1752, we infer heavy nitrogen enrichment . This requires efficiently retaining ≳500M ⊙of nitrogen in the high-pressure clouds from massive stars heavier than 60M ⊙up to 4 Myr. We suggest a physical origin of the high-pressure clouds from partial or complete condensation of slow massive star ejecta, which may have an important implication for the puzzle of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters. -
Free, publicly-accessible full text available August 1, 2024
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In this work, we present a constraint on the abundance of supergiant (SG) stars at redshift
z ≈ 1, based on recent observations of a strongly lensed arc at this redshift. First we derived a free-form model of MACS J0416.1-2403 using data from the Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields and Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) program. The new lens model is based on 72 multiply lensed galaxies that produce 214 multiple images, making it the largest sample of spectroscopically confirmed lensed galaxies on this cluster. The larger coverage in BUFFALO allowed us to measure the shear up to the outskirts of the cluster, and extend the range of lensing constraints up to ∼1 Mpc from the central region, providing a mass estimate up to this radius. As an application, we make predictions for the number of high-redshift multiply lensed galaxies detected in future observations with theJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Then we focus on a previously known lensed galaxy atz = 1.0054, nicknamed Spock, which contains four previously reported transients. We interpret these transients as microcaustic crossings of SG stars and explain how we computed the probability of such events. Based on simplifications regarding the stellar evolution, we find that microlensing (by stars in the intracluster medium) of SG stars atz = 1.0054 can fully explain these events. The inferred abundance of SG stars is consistent with either (1) a number density of stars with bolometric luminosities beyond the Humphreys-Davidson (HD) limit (L max ≈ 6 × 105L ⊙for red stars), which is below ∼400 stars kpc−2, or (2) the absence of stars beyond the HD limit but with a SG number density of ∼9000 kpc−2for stars with luminosities between 105L ⊙and 6 × 105L ⊙. This is equivalent to one SG star per 10 × 10 pc2. Finally, we make predictions for future observations with JWST’s NIRcam. We find that in observations made with theF 200W filter that reach 29 mag AB, if cool red SG stars exist atz ≈ 1 beyond the HD limit, they should be easily detected in this arc.Free, publicly-accessible full text available January 1, 2025