A Hubble Space Telescope Census of Nuclear Star Clusters in Late-Type Spiral Galaxies. I. Observations and Image Analysis

By T. Böker, S. Laine, R. P. van der Marel, M. Sarzi, Hans-Walter Rix, Luis C. Ho, J. Shields. 2001

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We present new Hubble Space Telescope I-band images of a sample of 77 nearby late-type spiral galaxies with low inclination. The main purpose of this catalog is to study the frequency and properties of nuclear star clusters. In 59 galaxies of our sample, we have identified a distinct, compact (but resolved), and dominant source at or very close to the photocenter. In many cases, these clusters are the only prominent source within a few kiloparsecs from the galaxy nucleus. We present surface brightness profiles, derived from elliptical isophote fits, of all galaxies for which the fit was successful. We use the fitted isophotes at radii larger than 2″ to check whether the location of the cluster coincides with the photocenter of the galaxy and confirm that in nearly all cases, we are truly dealing with "nuclear" star clusters. From analytical fits to the surface brightness profiles, we derive the cluster luminosities after subtraction of the light contribution from the underlying galaxy disk and/or bulge.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e80abf440051404f780ababac1c9926a9355fbf9

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Masses of Star Clusters in the Nuclei of Bulgeless Spiral Galaxies (2004, background): “This is the first paper in a series of two describing the results of ground-based follow-up spectroscopy with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) at the VLT to the HST survey by Böker et al. (2002).”
Quantifying the coexistence of massive black holes and dense nuclear star clusters (2009, background): “Within the field environment, the most common type of galaxies are spiral galaxies (e.g. Allen et al. 2006; Baldry et al. 2006) and many of these are also known to be nucleated (e.g. Carollo et al. 1998; Böker et al. 2002; Balcells et al. 2003).”
THE NGC 404 NUCLEUS: STAR CLUSTER AND POSSIBLE INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLE (2010, background): “Nuclear star clusters are compact (reff ∼ 5 pc), massive (∼ 107 M⊙) star clusters found at the center of a majority of spirals and lower mass ellipticals (Böker et al. 2002; Carollo et al. 2002; Côté et al. 2006).”
Black Holes in Pseudobulges and Spheroidals: A Change in the Black Hole-Bulge Scaling Relations at Low Mass (2008, background): “If this is indeed a physical component, we note that it is significantly more extended than the nuclear star clusters that appear to be a common component of the nuclei of galaxies of both late (e.g., Böker et al. 2002) and early type (e.g., Carollo et al. 2002; Côté et al. 2006).”
Hubble Space Telescope STIS Spectra of Nuclear Star Clusters in Spiral Galaxies: Dependence of Age and Mass on Hubble Type (2006, methodology): “…imaging with HST’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC; Phillips et al. 1996), Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2; Carollo et al. 1997, 1998; Matthews et al. 1999; Böker et al. 2002, 2004) and Near-Infrared Imaging Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer (NICMOS; Carollo et al. 2001, 2002).”
Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies (2008, background): “Centrally dominant nuclear star clusters, present in a large fraction of disk galaxies, typically have luminosities L ≈ 107 L⊙ (Carollo et al. 1997; Böker et al. 2002), and hence Ṁ∗ ≈ 10 −3 M⊙ yr −1.”
DISSIPATIONLESS FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE MILKY WAY NUCLEAR STAR CLUSTER (2011, background): “The centers of low-luminosity spheroids, MB ∼> − 18, are often marked by the presence of compact stellar nuclei with half-light radii of a few parsecs and luminosities that are ∼ 20 times that of a typical globular cluster (Carollo et al. 1998; Böker et al. 2002; Côté et al. 2006).”
DISSIPATION AND EXTRA LIGHT IN GALACTIC NUCLEI. II. “CUSP” ELLIPTICALS (2008, background): “…AND EXTRA LIGHT Many spiral galaxies and dwarf spheroidals show a central excess in their light profiles associated with dense stellar nuclei (nuclear star clusters) (Phillips et al. 1996; Carollo et al. 1997, 1998; Carollo 1999; Matthews et al. 1999; Böker et al. 2002, 2004; Seth et al. 2006).”
RADIATIVELY INEFFICIENT ACCRETION IN NEARBY GALAXIES (2009, background): “…concentrations, either in the formf nuclear cusps or photometrically distinct, compact stellar nuclei (e.g., Lauer et al. 1995; Phillips et al. 1996; Carollo et al.1997; Faber et al. 1997; Rest et al. 2001; Ravindranath et al. 2001; Böker et al. 2002; Ferrarese et al. 2006; Kormendy et al. 2009).”
Pathways to massive black holes and compact star clusters in pre-galactic dark matter haloes with virial temperatures ≳10 000 K (2008, background): “…nuclear star clusters which have been discovered in the centres of many galaxies including luminous elliptical galaxies and the bulges of spiral galaxies thanks to the unrivaled resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope (e.g. Carollo et al. 1997, 1998; Böker et al. 2002; Côté et al. 2006).”
Surface brightness profile of the Milky Way’s nuclear star cluster (2014, background): “Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) have been detected in ∼75% of all galaxies and appear as compact clusters at the photometric and dynamical centres of their host galaxies (e.g., Böker et al. 2002; Carollo et al. 1998; Côté et al. 2006; Neumayer et al. 2011).”
Masses and scaling relations for nuclear star clusters, and their co-existence with central black holes (2016, unknown): “…Durrell 1997; Carollo et al. 1998; Geha et al. 2002; Lotz et al. 2004; Côté et al. 2006; Turner et al. 2012; den Brok et al. 2014) and late-type galaxies (e.g. Böker et al. 2002, 2004; Balcells et al. 2007b,a; Seth et al. 2006; Georgiev et al. 2009a; Georgiev & Böker 2014; Carson et al. 2015).”
A Fundamental Relation between Compact Stellar Nuclei, Supermassive Black Holes, and Their Host Galaxies (2006, background): “About 50-70% of late-type galaxies observed by HST contain a distinct nuclear star cluster (Carollo, Stiavelli & Mack 1998; Matthews et al 1999; Böker et al. 2002, 2004; Balcells et al. 2003), while a recent HST survey of 100 galaxies in the Virgo Cluster has detected nuclei in a comparable…”
BULGE n AND B/T IN HIGH-MASS GALAXIES: CONSTRAINTS ON THE ORIGIN OF BULGES IN HIERARCHICAL MODELS (2008, background): “Late-type Sd galaxies often harbor no bulge (Böker et al. 2002).”
HST Photometry of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies in Coma, and an Explanation for the Alleged Structural Dichotomy between Dwarf and Bright Elliptical Galaxies (2003, background): “…HST studies of nearby, nucleated galaxies have focused on spiral galaxies (e.g., Phillips et al. 1996; Carollo et al. 1997a; Matthews et al. 1999; Böker et al. 2002; Carollo et al. 2002; Balcells et al. 2003) or luminous elliptical galaxies (e.g., Lauer et al. 1995; Ravindranath et al. 2001;…”