Related papers: A Binary Origin for Blue Stragglers in Globular Cl…
Close to 70 radio pulsars have now been discovered in 23 globular clusters, with a record 22 pulsars observed in 47 Tuc alone. Accurate timing solutions, including positions in the cluster, are known for many of the pulsars. These recent…
We report the results of new SPH calculations of parabolic collisions between two main-sequence stars in a globular cluster. Such collisions are directly relevant to the formation of blue stragglers. In particular, we consider parent stars…
The discovery of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters raises fundamental questions concerning the formation and dynamical history of these systems. In a previous study aimed at exploring the formation of second-generation (SG)…
The evolution of stellar collision products in cluster simulations has usually been modelled using simplified prescriptions. Such prescriptions either replace the collision product with an (evolved) main sequence star, or assume that the…
Nuclear star clusters are among the densest stellar systems known and are common in both early- and late-type galaxies. They exhibit scaling relations with their host galaxy which may be related to those of supermassive black holes. These…
Dense stellar clusters are expected to house the ideal conditions for binary black hole (BBH) formation, both through binary stellar evolution and through dynamical encounters. We use theoretical arguments as well as $N$-body simulations to…
The existence of blue straggler stars (BSS), which appear younger, hotter, and more massive than their siblings, is at odds with a simple picture of stellar evolution, as such stars should have exhausted their nuclear fuel and evolved long…
Stars in globular clusters (GCs) exhibit a peculiar chemical pattern with strong abundance variations in light elements along with a constant abundance in heavy elements. These abundance anomalies can be explained by a primordial pollution…
The central regions of six Galactic Globular Clusters (GGCs) (M3, M80, M10, M13, M92 and NGC 288) have been imaged using HST-WFPC2 and the ultraviolet (UV) filters (F255W, F336W). The selected sample covers a large range in both central…
Globular clusters are collisional systems, meaning that the stars inside them interact on timescales much shorter than the age of the Universe. These frequent interactions transfer energy between stars and set up observable trends that tell…
We consider the implications of the presence of ~1 stellar-mass black hole (BH) at the center of a dense globular cluster. We show that BH X-ray binaries formed through exchange interactions are likely to have extremely low duty cycles…
Most stars, binaries, and higher multiplicity systems are thought to form in stellar clusters and associations, which later dissociate. Very wide binaries can be easily disrupted in clusters due to dynamical evaporation (soft binaries)…
We present a technique to identify the most probable dynamical formation scenario for an observed binary or triple system containing one or more merger products or, alternatively, to rule out the possibility of a dynamical origin. Our…
The basic properties of the candidate binary cluster population in the Magellanic Clouds and Galaxy are similar. The fraction of candidate binary systems is $\sim$10% and the pair separation histogram exhibits a bimodal distribution…
Stellar collisions are an important formation channel for blue straggler stars in globular and old open clusters. Hydrodynamical simulations have shown that the remnants of such collisions are out of thermal equilibrium, are not strongly…
The formation of brown dwarfs (BDs) poses a key challenge to star formation theory. The observed dearth of nearby ($\leq 5$ AU) brown dwarf companions to solar-mass stars, known as the brown dwarf desert, as well as the tendency for…
This chapter reviews the dynamical processes in young stellar clusters. The accretion of gas by individual stars affects the dynamics of the cluster, and the masses of the stars. Dynamical mass segregation cannot explain the degree of mass…
Binary stars play a critical role in determining both the dynamical evolution and the observational appearance of globular star clusters. We present a summary of three talks presented at IAU JD15, reviewing the current observational and…
We discuss the main properties of the Galactic globular cluster (GC) blue straggler stars (BSS), as inferred from our new catalog containing nearly 3000 BSS. The catalog has been extracted from the photometrically homogeneous V vs. (B-V)…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…