Related papers: Gravitational Dynamics of Large Stellar Systems
In the first part of this article, we review observations of the mass and luminosity functions of young and old star cluster systems. We also review some of the physical processes that may determine the characteristic mass of globular…
The influence of rotation on the dynamical evolution of collisional stellar systems is investigated by solving the orbit-averaged Fokker-Planck equation in (E,J_z)-space. We find that large amounts of initial rotation drive the system into…
(ABBREVIATED) Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics. In this review the relation between interstellar turbulence and star formation is discussed. Supersonic turbulence can provide support…
The distribution of size as a function of age observed for star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is very puzzling: young clusters are all compact, while the oldest systems show both small and large sizes. It is commonly…
In our current interpretation of the hierarchical structure of the universe it is well established that galaxies collide and merge with each other during their lifetime. If massive black holes (MBHs) reside in galactic centres, we expect…
In the present paper we report on first results of a project in Brussels where we study the effects of stellar dynamics on the evolution of young dense stellar systems using the 3 decades expertise in massive star evolution and our…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…
Most stars form in dense stellar environments. It is speculated that some dense star clusters may host intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), which may have formed from runaway collisions between high-mass stars, or from the mergers of less…
Galaxy-scale outflows of gas, or galactic winds (GWs), driven by energy from star formation are a pivotal mechanism for regulation of star formation in the current model of galaxy evolution. Observations of this phenomenon have proliferated…
It appears that the dynamical status of clusters and groups of galaxies is related to the large-scale structure of the Universe. A few interesting trends have been established: (1) The Cluster Substructure - Alignment Connection, by which…
The presence of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters leads to a complex dynamical environment that significantly influences the evolution of binary stars, which in turn impacts the evolution of the cluster itself. For this…
Most planetary systems -- including our own -- are born within stellar clusters, where interactions with neighboring stars can help shape the system architecture. This paper develops an orbit-averaged formalism to characterize the cluster's…
Strong gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics provide two complementary and orthogonal constraints on the density profiles of galaxies. Based on spherically symmetric, scale-free, mass models, it is shown that the combination of both…
Globular Cluster (GC) formation seems to be a widespread mode of star formation in extreme starbursts triggered by strong interactions and mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies. We use our detailed chemically consistent evolutionary…
Around the turn of the last century, star clusters of all kinds were considered "simple" stellar populations. Over the past decade, this situation has changed dramatically. At the same time, star clusters are among the brightest stellar…
Runaway stellar collisions in dense star clusters are invoked to explain the presence of very massive stars or blue stragglers in the center of those systems. This process has also been explored for the first star clusters in the Universe…
We investigate the influence of the external tidal field of a dark matter halo on the dynamical evolution of star clusters using direct N-body simulations, where we assume that the halo is described by a Navarro, Frenk & White mass profile…
The dynamical processes involving stellar-remnant black holes (BH) in stellar clusters has always drawn attention due to the BHs' potential in a number of astrophysical phenomena, especially the dynamical formation of binary black holes…
Recent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that a strong dynamical and morphological evolution of disk galaxies has occurred in clusters of galaxies. I present the result of the self-consistent high-resolution simulations of…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…