Properties of PMS stars in young cluster Berkeley 59

We present deep optical observations of the central ~2.5x2.5 pc^2^ area of the cluster, obtained with the 3.58 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. The V/(V-I) color-magnitude diagram manifests a clear pre-main-sequence (PMS) population down to ~0.2 M_{sun}_.

Using the near-infrared and optical colors of the low-mass PMS members, we derive a global extinction of A_V_=4 mag and a mean age of ~1.8 Myr, respectively, for the cluster. We constructed the initial mass function and found that its global slopes in the mass ranges of 0.2-28 M_{sun}_ and 0.2-1.5 M_{sun}_ are -1.33 and -1.23, respectively, in good agreement with the Salpeter value in the solar neighborhood. We looked for the radial variation of the mass function and found that the slope is flatter in the inner region than in the outer region, indicating mass segregation.