Discovery of new Milky Way star cluster candidates in the 2MASS Point Source Catalog. II. Physical properties of the star cluster CC 01

Abstract

Three new obscured Milky Way clusters were detected as surface density peaks in the 2MASS point source catalog during our on-going search for hidden globular clusters and massive Arches-like star clusters. One more cluster was discovered serendipitously during a visual inspection of the candidates. The first deep J, H, and Ks imaging of the cluster [IBP 2002] CC 01 is presented. We estimated a cluster age of ∼1-3 Myr, distance modulus of (m - M)0 = 12.56 ± 0.08 mag (D = 3.5 kpc), and extinction of A y ∼ 7.7 mag. We also derived the initial mass function slope for the cluster: Γ = -2.23 ± 0.16 (ΓSalpeter = -2.35). The integration over the initial mass function yielded a total cluster mass Mtotal ≤ 1800 ± 200 M⊙. CC 01 appears to be a regular, not very massive star cluster, whose formation has probably been induced by the shock front from the nearby HII region Sh 2-228.