NIR view on young stellar clusters in nearby spirals

Observations in the near-infrared (NIR) allow a detailed study of young stellar clusters in grand-design spiral galaxies which in visual bands often are highly obscured by dust lanes along the arms. Deep JHK-maps of 10 spirals were obtained with HAWK-I/VLT. Data for NGC 2997 are presented here to illustrate the general results for the sample. The (H-K)–(J-H) diagrams suggest that most stellar clusters younger than 7 Myr are signif-icantly attenuated by dust with visual extinctions reaching 7m. A gap between younger and older cluster complexes in the (J-K)–MK diagram indicates a rapid reduction of extinction around 7 Myr possibly due to expulsion of dust and gas after supernovae explosions. The cluster luminosity function is consistent with a power law with an exponent α ≈ 2. Cluster luminosities of Mk = −15m are reached, corresponding to masses close to 106 M, with no indication of a cut-off. Their azimuthal angles relative to the main spiral arms show that the most massive clusters are formed in the arm regions while fainter ones also are seen between the arms. Older clusters are more uniformly distribution with a weaker modulation relative to the arms.