Exploration of morphological coherence in open clusters with a “core-shell” structure

Abstract

Context. The morphology of open clusters plays a major role in the study of their dynamic evolution. The study of their morphological coherence, namely, the three-dimensional (3D) difference between the inner and outer morphologies of open clusters, allows us to obtain a better understanding of the morphological evolution of open clusters. Aims. We aim to investigate the morphological coherence of 132 open clusters with up to 1 kpc from the Sun in the three-dimensional (3D) space within the heliocentric cartesian coordinate frame. The 132 open clusters have a 3D core-shell structure and conform to the ellipsoidal model, with all of them coming from a catalog of publicly available clusters in the literature. Methods. We employed the ellipsoid fitting method to delineate the 3D spatial structure of the sample clusters, while using the morphological dislocation (MD) defined in our previous work and the ellipticity ratio (ER) of the clusters’ inner and outer structures to characterize the morphological coherence of the sample clusters. Results. The results show an inverse correlation between the ER of the sample clusters and the number of their members, indicating that sample clusters with a much more elliptical external morphology than internal shape generally tend to host a large number of members. Meanwhile, a slight shrinking of the MD of the sample clusters with their members’ number may shed light on the significant role of the gravitational binding of the sample clusters in maintaining their morphological stability. Moreover, there are no correlations between the MD and ER of the sample clusters and their age. They are also not significantly correlated with the X-axis, the Y-axis, their orbital eccentricities, and the radial and vertical forces on them. However, the ER of the sample clusters displays some fluctuations in the distributions between it and the above covariates, implying that the morphologies of the sample clusters are sensitive to the external environment if sample effects are not taken into account. Finally, the analysis of the 3D spatial shapes of sample clusters with a small ER or a large ER demonstrates that the number of members lays an important foundation for forming a dense internal system for sample clusters. At the same time, the MD of the sample clusters can serve well as an indicator of their morphological stability, which is built upon a certain amount of member stars. Conclusions. We present a new insight into the morphological coherence of open clusters, attributed to the combination of their gravitational binding capacity and external environmental perturbations.