Longmore, Steven N., Rathborne, Jill, Bastian, Nate, Alves, Joao, Ascenso, Joana, Bally, John, Testi, Leonardo, Longmore, Andy, Battersby, Cara, Bressert, Eli, Purcell, Cormac, Walsh, Andrew, Jackson, James, Foster, Jonathan, Molinari, Sergio, Meingast, Stefan, Amorim, A., Lima, J., Marques, R., Moitinho, A., Pinhao, J., Rebordao, J. and Santos, F. D.
Abstract
Young massive clusters (YMCs) with stellar masses of 104-105 M &sun; and core stellar densities of 104-105 stars per cubic pc are thought to be the "missing link" between open clusters and extreme extragalactic super star clusters and globular clusters. As such, studying the initial conditions of YMCs offers an opportunity to test cluster formation models across the full cluster mass range. G0.253 0.016 is an excellent candidate YMC progenitor. We make use of existing multi-wavelength data including recently available far-IR continuum (Herschel/Herschel Infrared Galactic Plane Survey) and mm spectral line (H2O Southern Galactic Plane Survey and Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz Survey) data and present new, deep, multiple-filter, near-IR (Very Large Telescope/NACO) observations to study G0.253 0.016. These data show that G0.253 0.016 is a high-mass (1.3 × 105 M &sun;), low-temperature (T dust ~
