Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 578, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201425514
Keywords
methods: numerical; open clusters and associations: individual: Gamma Velorum cluster; stars: formation; stars: kinematics and dynamics
Categories
Funding
- ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory [188.B-3002]
- UK Science and Technology Facilities Council
- European Union through ERC [320360]
- Leverhulme Trust [RPG-2012-541]
- INAF
- Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR)
- Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) [RBFR12PM1F]
- INAF [PRIN-2011-1]
- CONACyT [169554]
- CINECA [HP10B3BJEW, HP10CLI3BX, HP10CXB7O8, HP10C894X7, HP10CGUBV0, HP10CP6XSO, HP10C3ANJY]
- ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme
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The Gaia-ESO Survey has recently unveiled the complex kinematic signature of the Gamma Velorum cluster: this cluster is composed of two kinematically distinct populations (hereafter, population A and B), showing two different velocity dispersions and a relative similar to 2 kms(-1) radial velocity (RV) shift. In this paper, we propose that the two populations of the Gamma Velorum cluster originate from two different sub-clusters, born from the same parent molecular cloud. We investigate this possibility by means of direct-summation N-body simulations. Our scenario is able to reproduce not only the RV shift and the different velocity dispersions, but also the different centroid (similar to 0.5 pc), the different spatial concentration and the different line-of-sight distance (similar to 5 pc) of the two populations. The observed 1-2 Myr age difference between the two populations is also naturally explained by our scenario, in which the two subclusters formed in two slightly different star formation episodes. Our simulations suggest that population B is strongly supervirial, while population A is close to virial equilibrium. We discuss the implications of our models for the formation of young star clusters and OB associations in the Milky Way.
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