THE INTRINSIC-PROPERTIES OF THE STELLAR CLUSTERS IN THE M82 STARBURSTCOMPLEX - PROPAGATING STAR-FORMATION

Near-Infrared spectroscopy combined with high spatial resolution imagi ng have been used in this work to probe the central 500 pc of M82. Ima ging observations in the 2.36 mu m CO band head are added to our previ ously published near-infrared hydrogen recombination line imaging, nea r-infrared broadband imaging, and 3.29 mu m dust feature imaging obser vations, in order to study the nature of the starburst stellar populat ion. A starburst model is constructed and compared with the observatio ns of the stellar clusters in the starburst complex. Our analysis impl ies that the typical age for the starburst clusters is 10(7) yr. In ad dition, our high spatial resolution observations indicate that there i s an age dispersion within the starburst complex that is correlated wi th projected distance from the center of the galaxy. The inferred age dispersion is 6 x 10(6) yr. If the starburst in M82 is propagating out ward from the center, this age dispersion corresponds to a velocity of propagation, originating in the center, of similar to 50 km s(-1). Ou r quantitative analysis also reveals that a Salpeter initial mass func tion, extending from 0.1 to 100 M-., can fit the observed properties o f M82 without using up more than 30% of the total dynamical mass in th e starburst.