Related papers: The Baltimore and Utrecht models for cluster disso…
We review the theory and observations of star cluster disruption. The three main phases and corresponding typical timescales of cluster disruption are: I) Infant Mortality (~10^7 yr), II) Stellar Evolution (~10^8 yr) and III) Tidal…
We present a framework for understanding the demographics of star cluster systems, and develop a toy model which incorporates a universal initial power law mass function, selected formation histories, selected disruption laws, and a…
We have modeled in detail the evolution of rich open star clusters such as the Pleiades, Praesepe and Hyades, using simulations that include stellar dynamics as well as the effects of stellar evolution. The dynamics is modeled via direct…
Context. Stochasticity and physical parameter degeneracy problems complicate the derivation of the parameters (age, mass, and extinction) of unresolved star clusters when using broad-band photometry. Aims. We develop a method to simulate…
Clusters are the dense inner regions of a wide-spread hierarchy of young stellar structures. They often reveal a continuation of this hierarchy inside of them, to smaller scales, when they are young, but orbital mixing eventually erases…
Star clusters are often used as tracers of major star formation events in external galaxies as they can be studied up to much larger distances than individual stars. It is vital to understand their evolution if they are used to derive, for…
Mass segregation is seen in many star clusters, but whether massive stars form in the center of a cluster or migrate there dynamically is still debated. N-body simulations have shown that early dynamical mass segregation is possible when…
Recently van der Meer et al. studied the breakdown of a granular cluster (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 88}, 174302 (2002)). We reexamine this problem using an urn model, which takes into account fluctuations and finite-size effects. General…
At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…
Gas expulsion is a central concept in some of the models for multiple populations and the light-element anticorrelations in globular clusters. If the star formation efficiency was around 30 per cent and the gas expulsion happened on the…
We examine the effects of gas expulsion on initially sub-structured and out-of-equilibrium star clusters. We perform N-body simulations of the evolution of star clusters in a static background potential before adjusting that potential to…
We present new tests for disruption mechanisms of star clusters based on the bivariate mass-age distribution g(M,\tau). In particular, we derive formulae for g(M,\tau) for two idealized models in which the rate of disruption depends on the…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
We present new results on the evolution of the mass function of the globular cluster system of the Milky Way, taking the effect of residual gas expulsion into account. We assume that gas embedded star clusters start with a power-law mass…
The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the nearest galaxies to us and is one of only few galaxies where the star formation history can be determined from studying resolved stellar populations. We have compiled a new catalogue of ages,…
Evolutionary synthesis models are the prime method to construct models of stellar populations, and to derive physical parameters from observations. One of the assumptions for such models so far has been the time-independence of the stellar…
We examine the effects of gas expulsion on initially sub-structured and out-of-equilibrium star clusters. We perform $N$-body simulations of the evolution of star clusters in a static background potential before removing that potential to…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
The expulsion of the unconverted gas at the end of the star formation process potentially leads to the expansion of the just formed stellar cluster and membership loss. The degree of expansion and mass loss depends largely on the star…
A dense-enough gas-accumulation evolves, over a few Myr of intensifying star formation, to an embedded cluster. If it contains a sufficient amount of mass, O stars form and explosively expel the remaining gas, whereas poorer clusters reduce…