Related papers: Survivability of a star cluster in a dispersing mo…
Star clusters are formed in molecular clouds which are believed to be the birth places of most stars. From recent observational data, Lada & Lada(2003) estimated that only 4 to 7% of the proto-clusters have survived. Many factors could…
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…
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…
Stellar clusters are born embedded within giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and during their formation and early evolution are often only visible at infrared wavelengths, being heavily obscured by dust. Over the last 15 years advances in…
We study the evolution of embedded clusters. The equations of motion of the stars in the cluster are solved by direct N-body integration while taking the effects of stellar evolution and the hydrodynamics of the natal gas content into…
After the stars of a new, embedded star cluster have formed they blow the remaining gas out of the cluster. Especially winds of massive stars and definitely the on-set of the first supernovae can remove the residual gas from a cluster. This…
We predict the survival time of initially bound star clusters in the solar neighbourhood taking into account: (1) stellar evolution, (2) tidal stripping, (3) shocking by spiral arms and (4) encounters with giant molecular clouds. We find…
How stellar clusters disrupt, and over what timescales, is intimately linked with how they form. Here, we review the theory and observations of cluster disruption, both the suggested initial rapid dissolution phase (infant mortality) and…
We investigate the dissolution process of young embedded star clusters with different primordial mass segregation levels using fractal distributions by means of N-body simulations. We combine several star clusters in virial and subvirial…
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…
Stellar clusters are born in cold and dusty molecular clouds and the youngest clusters are embedded to various degrees in dusty dark molecular material. Such embedded clusters can be considered protocluster systems. The most deeply buried…
We use N-body simulations to survey the response of embedded star clusters to the dispersal of their parent molecular cloud. The final stages of the clusters can be divided into three classes: the cluster (i) is destroyed, (ii) has a loose…
Feedback from massive stars plays a key role in molecular cloud evolution. After the onset of star formation, the young stellar population is exposed by photoionization, winds, supernovae, and radiation pressure from massive stars. Recent…
Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies, and only 10 per cent of all clusters appear to survive to middle- and old-dynamical age. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical…
Stars are usually formed in clusters in the dense cores of molecular clouds. These embedded clusters show a wide variety of morphologies from hierarchical clusters with substructure to centrally condensed ones. Often they are elongated and…
Most formation scenarios of globular clusters assume a molecular cloud as the progenitor of the stellar system. However, it is still unclear, how this cloud is transformed into a star cluster, i.e. how the destructive processes related to…
It is generally accepted that the lifetime of molecular clouds does not exceed $3\cdot 10^7$ yr due to disruption by stellar feedback. We put together some arguments giving evidence that a substantial fraction of molecular clouds (primarily…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
It is likely that all stars are born in clusters, but most clusters are not bound and disperse. None of the many protoclusters in our Galaxy are likely to develop into long-lived bound clusters. The Super Star Clusters (SSCs) seen in…
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…