Aggregates of clusters in the Gaia data

Context. The precision of the parallax measurements by Gaia is unprecedented. As of Gaia Data Release 2, the number of known nearby open clusters has increased. Some of the clusters appear to be relatively close to each other and form aggregates, which makes them interesting objects to study.Aims. We study the aggregates of clusters which share several of the assigned member stars in relatively narrow volumes of the phase space.Methods. Using the most recent list of open clusters, we compare the cited central parallaxes with the histograms of parallax distributions of cluster aggregates. The aggregates were chosen based on the member stars which are shared by multiple clusters.Results. Many of the clusters in the aggregates have been assigned parallaxes which coincide with the histograms. However, clusters that share a large number of members in a small volume of the phase space display parallax distributions which do not coincide with the values from the literature. This is the result of ignoring a possibility of assigning multiple probabilities to a single star. We propose that this small number of clusters should be analysed anew.

Automated summary

This study examined aggregates of clusters sharing common member stars and compared their parallax distributions with central parallaxes from literature. While many clusters showed matching parallax distributions, some clusters with a large number of shared members displayed discrepancies, possibly due to overlooking the possibility of assigning multiple probabilities to a single star. Further analysis is recommended for these clusters.