Related papers: Young massive star clusters: Achievements and chal…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…
We study the formation and early evolution of star clusters that have a wide range of masses and background cloud mass surface densities, $\Sigma_{\rm cloud}$, which help set the initial sizes, densities, and velocity dispersions of the…
The formation environment of stars in massive stellar clusters is similar to the environment of stars forming in galaxies at a redshift of 1 - 3, at the peak star formation rate density of the Universe. As massive clusters are still forming…
We summarize some of the results obtained from Herschel surveys of the nearby star forming regions and the Galactic plane. We show that in the nearby star forming regions the starless core spatial surface density distribution is very…
Quantifying the timescales of star cluster emergence from their natal clouds remains one of the main challenges in understanding the star formation process. These timescales are fundamental measurements of the star formation cycle within…
The formation of massive stars is one of the major unsolved problems in stellar astrophysics. However, only few if any of these are found as single stars, on average massive stars have more than one companion. Many of them are born in dense…
I present a brief review of the stellar population properties of massive galaxies, focusing on early-type galaxies in particular, with emphasis on recent results from the ATLAS3D Survey. I discuss the occurrence of young stellar ages, cold…
The evolution of star clusters is studied using N-body simulations in which the evolution of single stars and binaries are taken self-consistently into account. Initial conditions are chosen to represent relatively young Galactic open…
The aim of this work is to test to what extent the star cluster population of a galaxy can be utilised to constrain or estimate the star formation history, with the Large Magellanic Cloud as our testbed. We follow two methods to extract…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
Stars in star clusters are thought to form in a single burst from a common progenitor cloud of molecular gas. However, massive, old globular clusters -- with ages greater than 10 billion years and masses of several hundred thousand solar…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. Their contribution to the total luminosity induced by such…
The formation of massive stars is an outstanding problem in stellar evolution. However, it is expected that they are (predominantly) born in heirarchical environments within massive young clusters, which in turn are located within larger…
Several dynamical scenarios have been proposed that can lead to prompt mass segregation on the crossing time scale of a young cluster. They generally rely on cool and/or clumpy initial conditions, and are most relevant to small systems. As…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
Star formation lies at the center of a web of processes that drive cosmic evolution: generation of radiant energy, synthesis of elements, formation of planets, and development of life. Decades of observations have yielded a variety of…
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…
The stellar-dynamical evolution of bound star clusters during the first few Myr is dominated by binary-binary and binary-star interactions, the rapid sinking of the most massive stars to the centre of the clusters and mass loss from…
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…
Both simulations and observations indicate that stars form in filamentary, hierarchically clustered associations, most of which disperse into their galactic field once feedback destroys their parent clouds. However, during their early…