English

Star clusters and galactic chemodynamics: Implosive formation of super star clusters

Astrophysics 2009-11-10 v1

Abstract

We numerically investigate dynamical and chemical properties of star clusters (open and globular clusters, and ``super star clusters'', SSC) formed in interacting/merging galaxies. The investigation is two-fold: (1) large-scale (100pc-100kpc) SPH simulations on density and temperature evolution of gas in interacting/merging galaxies and (2) small-scale ones on the effects of high gas pressure of ISM on the evolution of molecular clouds. We find that the pressure of ISM in merging galaxies can become higher than the internal pressure of GMCs (\sim 10510^5 kB\rm k_{\rm B} K cm3\rm cm^{-3}), in particular, in the tidal tails or the central regions of mergers. We also find that GMCs can collapse to form super star clusters within an order of 10710^7 yr owing to the strong compression by the high presser ISM in mergers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0308244,
  title  = {Star clusters and galactic chemodynamics: Implosive formation of super star clusters},
  author = {Kenji Bekki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0308244},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

In the proceedings of the 5th workshop on galactic chemodynamics, 4 pages and 4 figures (two colors)