Related papers: Young Massive Clusters
Recent images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of the interacting disk galaxies NGC 4038/4039 (the Antennae) reveal clusters of many dozens and possibly hundreds of young compact massive star clusters within projected regions…
In this lecture we investigate the formation and evolution of black holes in star clusters. The star clusters under consideration are generally rich, containing more than 10^4 stars, and with a density exceeding 10^4 stars/pc^3. Among these…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most compact, high-mass stellar systems still forming at the present day. The precursor clouds to such systems are, however, rare due to their large initial gas mass reservoirs and rapid dispersal…
Globular clusters are often assumed to be good tracers of major star formation episodes in their host galaxies. While observations over the past 2 decades have confirmed the presence of young objects with globular cluster-like properties in…
A major paradigm shift has recently revolutionized our picture of globular clusters (GC) that were long thought to be simple systems of coeval stars born out of homogeneous material. Indeed, detailed abundance studies of GC long-lived…
Whilst young massive clusters (YMCs; $M$ $\gtrsim$ 10$^{4}$ M$_{\odot}$, age $\lesssim$ 100 Myr) have been identified in significant numbers, their progenitor gas clouds have eluded detection. Recently, four extreme molecular clouds…
Little is known about the origins of the giant star clusters known as globular clusters. How can hundreds of thousands of stars form simultaneously in a volume only a few light years across the distance of the sun to its nearest neighbor?…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
We study the evolution and observability of young and compact star clusters near the Galactic center, such as the Arches cluster and the Quintuplet. The star clusters are modeled with a combination of techniques; using direct N-body,…
The stellar populations of galaxies contain a wealth of detailed information. From the youngest, most massive stars, to almost invisible remnants, the history of star formation is encoded in the stars that make up a galaxy. Extracting some,…
We present the first results of a new technique to detect, locate, and characterize young dissolving star clusters. Using HST/ACS archival images of the nearby galaxy IC2574, we performed stellar PSF photometry and selected the most massive…
By virtue of their high galaxy space densities and their large spatial separations, clusters are efficient and accurate tracers of the large-scale density and velocity fields. Substantial progress has been made over the past decade in the…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
Mass determinations are difficult to obtain and still frequently characterised by deceptively large uncertainties. We review below the various mass estimators used for star clusters of all ages and luminosities. We highlight a few recent…
Massive star clusters are often used as tracers of galaxy formation and assembly. In order to do so, we must understand their properties at formation, and how those properties change with time, galactic environment, and galaxy assembly…
Studies during the last decade have revealed that nearly all Globular Clusters (GCs) host multiple populations (MPs) of stars with a distinctive chemical patterns in light elements. No evidence of such MPs has been found so far in…
I review the long-term survival chances of young massive star clusters (YMCs), hallmarks of intense starburst episodes often associated with violent galaxy interactions. In particular, I address the key question as to whether at least some…
We show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star forming clumps, such as those observed…
In spite of the promise of new techniques for constraining the mass distribution in galaxy clusters, much remains to be learned from galaxy orbital velocities. This article reviews the theory of potential estimation in hot dynamical systems…
The progenitors of high-mass stars and clusters are still challenging to recognise. Only unbiased surveys, sensitive to compact regions of high dust column density, can unambiguously reveal such a small population of particularly massive…