Massive star cluster formation and evolution in tidal dwarf galaxies
  The formation of globular clusters remains an open debate. Dwarf starburst
galaxies are efficient at forming young massive clusters with similar masses as
globular clusters and may hold the key to understanding their formation. We
study star cluster formation in a tidal debris - including the vicinity of
three tidal dwarf galaxies - in a massive gas dominated collisional ring around
NGC~5291. These dwarfs have physical parameters which differ significantly from
local starbursting dwarfs. They are gas-rich, highly turbulent, have a gas
metallicity already enriched up to half-solar, and are expected to be free of
dark matter. The aim is to study massive star cluster formation in this as yet
unexplored type of environment. We use imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope
using broadband filters covering the wavelength range from the near-ultraviolet
to the near-infrared. We determine the masses and ages of the cluster
candidates by using the spectral energy distribution-fitting code CIGALE,
carefully considering age-extinction degeneracy effects on the estimation of
the physical parameters. We find that the tidal dwarf galaxies in the ring of
NGC 5291 are forming star clusters with an average efficiency of $\sim40\%$,
comparable to blue compact dwarf galaxies. We also find massive star clusters
for which the photometry suggests that they were formed at the very birth of
the tidal dwarf galaxies and have survived for several hundred million years.
Therefore our study shows that extended tidal dwarf galaxies and compact
clusters may be formed simultaneously. In the specific case observed here, the
young star clusters are not massive enough to survive for a Hubble time.
However one may speculate that similar objects at higher redshift, with higher
star formation rate, might form some of the long lived globular clusters.
