Related papers: Globular clusters as laboratories for stellar evol…
We analyze with hydrodynamical simulations the evolution of galaxy clusters in a cosmological environment. Power ratios (Buote \& Tsai 1995) are used to quantitatively relate cluster morphologies to their dynamical states. The simulated…
Stellar clusters are thought to be the simplest stellar systems and the closest observational counterparts to theoretical models for single stellar populations. Progress in our understanding of the atmospheres and evolution of massive stars…
In this review, I will discuss a few problems which point to the need for improved stellar evolution models of halo stars. Current stellar evolution models do not match the observed $^7$Li abundance patterns, suggesting that the input…
Our understanding of the cosmic history of galaxy clusters has recently been enhanced due to an extensive series of observations including faint spectroscopic data (especially those obtained at the Keck Observatory), deep optical and NIR…
The superior resolution of HST and the light gathering power of large 8-10m class telescopes are now providing information on distant globular clusters (GCs) that is comparable to that obtained in early 1990s for Local Group systems. Here I…
It is now clear that abundance variations from star-to-star among the light elements, particularly C, N, O, Na and Al, are ubiquitous within galactic globular clusters; they appear seen whenever data of high quality is obtained for a…
We present a series of $N$-body simulations representing the evolution of a galactic nucleus and its stellar content in a nearly one-to-one representation. The aim of this suite of simulations is to shed light on the interplay between…
The total mass of a galaxy cluster is one of its most fundamental properties. Together with the redshift, the mass links observation and theory, allowing us to use the cluster population to test models of structure formation and to…
We describe the results of observations of galaxy clusters conducted with ISOCAM on-board the Infrared Space Observatory. Our research is aimed at understanding the processes driving galaxy evolution in dense environments, free from the…
The total number of globular clusters (GCs) in a galaxy rises continuously with the galaxy luminosity L, while the relative number of galaxies decreases with L following the Schechter function. The product of these two very nonlinear…
We discuss, from a statistical point of view, some leading issues that deal with the study of stellar populations in fully or partially unresolved aggregates, like globular clusters and distant galaxies. A confident assessment of the…
Globular clusters are among the first objects used to establish the distance scale of the Universe. In the 1970-ies it has been recognized that the differential magnitude distribution of old globular clusters is very similar in different…
We present a study of globular clusters (GCs) in 17 relatively nearby early-type galaxies, based on deep HST/WFPC2 F555W and F814W images. We compare color distributions, cluster sizes and luminosity functions with those of GCs in the Milky…
I report on some recent results in the framework of a complex project aimed to characterize the photometric properties of stellar populations in Galactic Globular Clusters.
Dynamical friction and tidal disruption are effective mechanisms of evolution of globular cluster systems, especially in non-axysimmetric galaxies with a central compact nucleus. With a semi-analytical approach based on the knowledge of the…
Stellar clusters are important for astrophysics in many ways, for instance as optimal tracers of the Galactic populations to which they belong or as one of the best test bench for stellar evolutionary models. Gaia DR1, with TGAS, is just…
We take a closer look at our published results of determination of ages, metallicities, helium mass fractions and abundances of chemical elements in Galactic globular clusters in order to find possible signatures of the phenomenon of…
The age of globular clusters inferred from observations depends sensitively on assumptions such as the initial helium abundance and the mass loss rate. A high helium abundance (e.g., $Y\approx$0.28), as well as an inclusion of helium…
Cluster abundance measurements are among the most sensitive probes of the amplitude of matter fluctuations in the universe, which in turn can help constrain other cosmological parameters, like the dark energy equation of state or neutrino…
Empirically, the total number (or total mass) of globular clusters bound in a single galactic system correlates with the viral mass of the system. The form of this relation and its intrinsic scatter are potentially valuable constraints on…