Related papers: Mass functions and photometric binaries in nine op…
We present CCD photometry and proper motion studies of the two open star clusters NGC 1960 (M 36) and NGC 2194. Fitting isochrones to the colour magnitude diagrams, for NGC 1960 we found an age of t=16 Myr and a distance of roughly d=1300…
We built Galactic open star cluster mass functions (CMFs) for different age sub-samples in the wider solar neighbourhood. We present a simple cluster formation and evolution model to reproduce the main features of the CMFs. We used an…
The properties of 939 star clusters in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were determined from ground-based CCD images in UBVR passbands. The areal coverage was extensive, corresponding to 11.0 sq-kpc in the LMC and 8.3 sq-kpc in the…
This contribution addresses the question of whether the initial cluster mass function (ICMF) has a fundamental limit (or truncation) at high masses. The shape of the ICMF at high masses can be studied using the most massive young (<10 Myr)…
(... abridged) The observed luminosity function can be constructed in a range of absolute integrated magnitudes $I_{M_V}= [-10, -0.5]$ mag, i.e. about 5 magnitudes deeper than in the most nearby galaxies. It increases linearly from the…
The mass of unresolved young star clusters derived from spectro-photometric data may well be off by a factor of 2 or more once the migration of massive stars driven by mass segregation is accounted for. We quantify this effect for a large…
We present a uniform analysis of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) from integrated light spectroscopy of 15 compact stellar systems (11 globular clusters in M31 and 4 ultra compact dwarfs in the Virgo cluster, UCDs) and two brightest…
The study of young stellar populations has revealed that most stars are in binary or higher order multiple systems. In this study the influence on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of large quantities of unresolved multiple massive…
Many recent works have attempted to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) inside massive clusters by comparing their dynamical mass estimates to the measured light. These studies have come to different conclusions, with some…
We present the results of a 0.86 square degree CCD photometric survey of the open cluster NGC 2516, which has an age of about 150 Myr and may have a much lower metallicity than the similarly-aged Pleiades. We select a preliminary catalogue…
Young open clusters located in the outer Galaxy provide us with an opportunity to study star formation activity in a different environment from the solar neighborhood. We present a UBVI and H alpha photometric study of the young open…
We use 2MASS photometry to study colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams, structure and mass distribution in the ionizing open cluster NGC\,6611. Reddening variation throughout the cluster region is taken into account followed by…
The initial cluster mass function (ICMF) in spiral galaxy discs is constrained and compared with data for old globular clusters and young clusters in starbursts. It is found that the observed ages and luminosities of the brightest clusters…
Open clusters, which have age, abundance, and extinction information from studies of main-sequence turn off stars, are the ideal location in which to determine the mass-luminosity-radius relation for low-mass stars. We have undertaken a…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) and the fraction of binary systems are fundamental ingredients that govern the formation and evolution of galaxies. Whether the IMF is universal or varies with environment remains one of the central…
We have obtained images of the Trapezium Cluster (140" x 140"; 0.3 pc x 0.3 pc) with the Hubble Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). Combining these data with new ground-based K-band spectra (R=800)…
We have used the FORS-1 camera on the VLT to study the main sequence (MS) of the globular cluster NGC 6218 in the V and R bands. The observations cover an area of 3.4 x 3.4 around the cluster centre and probe the stellar population out to…
We have derived the global mass functions of a sample of 35 Galactic globular clusters by comparing deep Hubble Space Telescope photometry with suitable multimass dynamical models. For a subset of 29 clusters with available radial velocity…
The main goal of our project is to obtain a complete picture of individual open clusters from homogeneous data and then search for correlations between their astrophysical parameters. The near-infrared JHKS photometric data from the…
Recent papers have found that the inferred slope of the high-mass ($>1.5$ M$_\odot$) IMF for field stars in the solar vicinity has a larger value ($\sim 1.7-2.1$) than the slopes ($\sim 1.2-1.7$; Salpeter= 1.35) inferred from numerous…