Related papers: The Spatial Evolution of Stellar Structures in 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…
The Interstellar Medium has a fractal structure, in the sense that gas and dust distribute in a hierarchical and self-similar manner. Stars in new-born cluster probably follow the same fractal patterns of their parent molecular clouds.…
Galactic star formation scaling relations show increased scatter from kpc to sub-kpc scales. Investigating this scatter may hold important clues to how the star formation process evolves in time and space. Here, we combine different…
All stars are born in molecular clouds, and most in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), which thus set the star formation activity of galaxies. We first review their observed properties, including measures of mass surface density, Sigma, and…
We observed six fields of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with the Advanced Camera for Survey on board the Hubble Space Telescope in the F555W and F814W filters. These fields sample regions characterized by very different star and gas…
In a series of three papers, we introduced a novel cluster formation model that describes the formation, growth, and disruption of star clusters in high-resolution cosmological simulations. We tested this model on a Milky Way-sized galaxy…
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…
A large sample of young stellar groups is analysed aiming to investigate their clustering properties and dynamical evolution. A comparison of the Q statistical parameter, measured for the clusters, with the fractal dimension estimated for…
In models of galaxy formation in a hierarchical Universe, elliptical galaxies form through the merging of smaller disk systems. These models yield a number of testable predictions if reliable techniques for determining the relative ages and…
We discuss the mechanism of cluster formation in hierarchically collapsing molecular clouds. Recent evidence, both observational and numerical, suggests that molecular clouds (MCs) may be undergoing global, hierarchical gravitational…
Understanding the formation and evolution of young star clusters requires quantitative statistical measures of their structure. We investigate the structures of observed and modelled star-forming clusters. By considering the different…
Studies of stellar populations, understood to mean collections of stars with common spatial, kinematic, chemical, and/or age distributions, have been reinvigorated during the last decade by the advent of large-area sky surveys such as SDSS,…
Recent discoveries have put the picture of stellar clusters being simple stellar populations into question. In particular, the color-magnitude diagrams of intermediate age (1-2 Gyr) massive clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) show…
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 mostly form in groups consisting of a few dozen to several ten thousand members. For 30 years, theoretical models provide a basic concept of how such star clusters form and develop: they originate from the gas and dust of collapsing…
We investigate structural, kinematical, and chemical properties of stars and gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) interacting with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Galaxy based on a series of self-consistent chemodynamical…
We present a quantitative analysis of the SFH of 12 fields in the SMC. We find that there are four main periods of enhancement of star formation: a young one peaked at around 0.2-0.5 Gyr old, only present in the eastern and in the…
Despite their close proximity, the complex interplay between the two Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way, and the resulting tidal features, is still poorly understood. Recent studies have shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has a very…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
The pace and pattern of star formation leading to rich young stellar clusters is quite uncertain. In this context, we analyze the spatial distribution of ages within 19 young (median t<3 Myr on the Siess et al. (2000) timescale),…