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R. W. Slawson, Z. Ninkov, E. Horch (C. I. S., R. I. T.)
As part of a study into the Initial Mass Function in young OB star clusters, we have imaged NGC 3293 and NGC 2362 in the UBVRI bands. Both clusters are ~107 years old and are mostly free of gas and dust. However, they exhibit a marked difference in their stellar mass functions.
The mass distribution of stars in NGC 3293 appears to be truncated at ~2.2 M\sun with only a few less massive, plausible members. On the otherhand, NGC 2362 has a well populated sequence of pre-main-sequence stars. Moreover, the images were acquired on the same observing runs and the data reduction and analysis are identical circumventing some of the uncertainties that may arise when comparing results from different studies. We can only conclude that the low- and intermediate-mass star formation histories of these two clusters was different.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: slawson@cis.rit.edu