Westerlund 1 under the light of Gaia EDR3: Distance, isolation, extent, and a hidden population

Context. The young massive cluster Westerlund 1 offers the promise of a grand laboratory for the study of high-mass star evolution, but its basic parameters are still poorly known. Aims. In this paper, we aim at a better characterisation of the cluster by determining some basic kinematic properties and analysing the area surrounding the cluster and the population in its foreground. Methods. We have used Gaia early data release 3 (EDR3) data, together with spectra of a large sample of luminous stars in the field surrounding Westerlund 1, to explore the extent of the cluster. We carried out a non-parametric analysis of proper motions and membership determination. We investigated the reddening and proper motions of several dozen OB stars and red supergiants less than one degree away from Westerlund 1. Results. We identify a population of kinematic members of Westerlund 1 that largely includes the known spectroscopic members. From their EDR3 parallaxes, we derive a distance to the cluster of kpc. We analyse the extinction in this direction, finding that it increases by a large amount around 2.8 kpc, which in all likelihood is due to dark clouds associated with the Scutum-Crux arm. As a consequence, we hardly see any stars at distances comparable (or higher) than that of the cluster. The proper motions of Westerlund 1, however, are very similar to those of stars in the field surrounding it which are – almost without exception – less distant, but distinct. We find a second, astrometrically well-defined population in the foreground (d ≈ 2 kpc), centred ∼8′ away, which is likely connected to the possible open cluster BH 197. Westerlund 1 is very elongated, an effect that seems real and not driven by the very heavy extinction to the east and south. We find a low-density halo extending to distances up to 10′ from the cluster centre, mainly in the north-west quadrant. A few OB stars at larger distances from the cluster, most notably the luminous blue variable (LBV) MN48, share its proper motions, suggesting that Westerlund 1 has little or no peculiar motion with respect to the field population of the Norma arm. Despite this, we are unable to find any red supergiant that could belong to an extended population related to the cluster, although we observe several dozen such objects in the foreground, demonstrating the richness of the field population along this sightline. We find a substantial population of luminous OB members obscured by several more magnitudes of extinction than most known members. These objects, mostly located in the central region of the cluster, increase the population of OB supergiants by about 25%. © ESO 2022.This research is partially supported by the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under grants PGC2018-093 741-B-C21/C22 and PGC2018-095 049-B-C21/C22 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) and the Generalitat Valenciana under grant PROMETEO/2019/041. EJA acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709)”. RD acknowledges further support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through grant SEV 2015-0548, and from the Canarian Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI), of the Canary Islands Government, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), under grant with reference ProID2 017 010 115. The AAOmega observations have been supported by the OPTICON project (observing proposal 2011A/014), which was funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). This research has made use of the Simbad, Vizier and Aladin services developed at the Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg, France. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. The Gaia data are processed with the computer resources at Mare Nostrum and the technical support provided by BSC-CNS. In this work, we have made extensive use of TOPCAT (Taylor et al. 2005). We thank its author, and subsequent contributors, for the creation and development of this tool.Peer reviewe