On the interpretation of the age distribution of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

We reanalyze the age distribution (dN/dt) of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) using age determinations based on theMagellanic Cloud Photometric Survey. Our results are in sharp contrast to the interpretation of Chandar et al., who interpret the declining dN/dt distribution as rapid cluster dissolution. This is due to their erroneous assumption that the sample is limited by cluster mass, rather than luminosity.