EPoS Contribution
EPoS Contribution
A star cluster in its early stages

Morten Andersen
IPAG, Grenoble, France
Star clusters are the birthplace of most stars, yet our understanding of their formation and early evolution during the gas-dominated phase remains poor. This is especially so for massive, > 10^4 M_sun clusters, of which there are few nearby examples. We present deep VLT/HAWKI imaging of a gas-dominated, massive, young star-forming clump. With a total gas mass of 2x10^4 M_sun and an infall rate of ~3.4x10^{-2} M_sun/yr$, the clump is potentially a progenitor of massive star clusters like NGC 3603. Due to its relative proximity of 2.5kpc we can probe the full stellar initial mass function in the early stages of star formation. We map the projected two dimensional structure of the cluster and compare it to the gas distribution in order to distinguish between fast and slow formation, based on the amount of sub-structure observed.