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  • SPATIALLY CORRELATED CLUSTE...
    Herbert-Fort, Stephane; Zaritsky, Dennis; Moustakas, John; Christlein, Daniel; Wilcots, Eric; Baruffolo, Andrea; Ragazzoni, Roberto; DiPaola, Andrea; Fontana, Adriano; Giallongo, Emanuele; Pogge, Richard W.; Smareglia, Riccardo

    The Astrophysical journal, 08/2009, Letnik: 700, Številka: 2
    Journal Article

    We use deep ({approx}27.5 mag V-band point-source limiting magnitude) V- and U-band Large Binocular Telescope imaging to study the outer disk (beyond the optical radius R {sub 25}) of the non-interacting, face-on spiral galaxy NGC 3184 (D = 11.1 Mpc; R {sub 25} = 11.1 kpc) and find that this outer disk contains >1000 objects (or marginally resolved 'knots') resembling star clusters with masses {approx}10{sup 2}-10{sup 4} M {sub sun} and ages up to {approx}1 Gyr. We find statistically significant numbers of these cluster-like knots extending to {approx}1.4 R {sub 25}, with the redder knots outnumbering bluer at the largest radii. We measure clustering among knots and find significant correlation to galactocentric radii of 1.5 R {sub 25} for knot separations <1 kpc. The effective integrated surface brightness of this outer disk cluster population ranges from 30-32 mag arcsec{sup -2} in V. We compare the H I extent to that of the correlated knots and find that the clusters extend at least to the damped Lyman-{alpha} threshold of H I column density (2 x 10{sup 20} cm{sup -2}; {approx}1.62 R {sub 25}). The blue knots are correlated with H I spiral structure to {approx}1.5 R {sub 25}, while the red knots may be correlated with the outer fringes of the H I disk to {approx}1.7 R {sub 25}. These results suggest that outer disks are well populated, common, and long-lasting features of many nearby disk galaxies.