What the Milky Way's young star clusters can do for your science

Emily Hunt

Thursday, Dec. 5th, 9:40CET

The Milky Way is the only galaxy that we can study up close, and our 3D view of its ISM and stars is critical for understanding star formation. However, there's a catch: it is also the only galaxy that we have to study from within, making all Milky Way science dependent on accurate tracers of its 3D and time-dependent structure. The Milky Way's young star clusters - in particular, its open clusters - have long been a highly effective tool to better understand our galaxy, and star formation in general. Data from Gaia and new machine learning techniques have only supercharged their potential. In this talk, I will present the current status of the Milky Way young cluster census, and provide an overview of recent advances in young Milky Way cluster science. I will pitch my talk for a broad audience, aiming to let both observers and theorists know what the Milky Way's star clusters could do for them. I will start by reviewing my recent catalogue of over 7000 star clusters in Gaia DR3, which represents the single largest deduplicated catalogue of clusters and their parameters to date. I will show a number of surprising results that have resulted from this work, including how it is now possible to trace most young clusters around the Sun back to just three super star formation regions from over 10 million years ago, and how the Milky Way's young clusters appear to have a universal IMF. I will also discuss our recent work to accurately determine the selection function of my catalogue, a critical ingredient that will dramatically improve the accuracy of comparisons between the Milky Way's star clusters and galaxy simulations.