English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

NGC 796 is a massive young cluster located 59 kpc from us in the diffuseintergalactic medium of the 1/5-1/10 $Z_{\odot}$ Magellanic Bridge, allowing toprobe variations in star formation and stellar evolution processes as afunction of metallicity in a resolved fashion, providing a link betweenresolved studies of nearby solar-metallicity and unresolved distant metal-poorclusters located in high-redshift galaxies. In this paper, we present adaptiveoptics $gri$H$\alpha$ imaging of NGC 796 (at 0.5", which is ~0.14 pc at thecluster distance) along with optical spectroscopy of two bright members toquantify the cluster properties. Our aim is to explore if star formation andstellar evolution varies as a function of metallicity by comparing theproperties of NGC 796 to higher metallicity clusters. We find from isochronalfitting of the cluster main sequence in the colour-magnitude diagram an age of20$^{+12}_{-5}$ Myr. Based on the cluster luminosity function, we derive atop-heavy stellar initial mass function (IMF) with a slope $\alpha$ =1.99$\pm$0.2, hinting at an metallicity and/or environmental dependence of theIMF which may lead to a top-heavy IMF in the early Universe. Study of theH$\alpha$ emission line stars reveals that Classical Be stars constitute ahigher fraction of the total B-type stars when compared with similar clustersat greater metallicity, providing some support to the chemically homogeneoustheory of stellar evolution. Overall, NGC 796 has a total estimated mass of990$\pm200$ $M_{\odot}$, and a core radius of 1.4$\pm$0.3 pc which classifiesit as a massive young open cluster, unique in the diffuse interstellar mediumof the Magellanic Bridge.

The Magellanic Bridge cluster NGC 796: Deep optical AO imaging reveals the stellar content and initial mass function of a massive open cluster