Related papers: The evolution of the stellar mass function in star…
Clusters that form in total 10^3 < N < 10^5 stars (type II clusters) lose their gas within a dynamical time as a result of the photo-ionising flux from O stars. Sparser (type I) clusters get rid of their residual gas on a timescale longer…
Stars form predominantly in groups which display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes, and other properties. Despite this diversity there exist an underlying structure that can constrain cluster formation theories. We show how combining…
We examine the effects of gas-expulsion on initially substructured distributions of stars. We perform N-body simulations of the evolution of these distributions in a static background potential to mimic the gas. We remove the static…
Here we explore the evolution of galaxy ensembles at early times by writing the in situ stellar mass growth of galaxies purely as a stationary stochastic (e.g., quasi-steady state) process. By combining the mathematics of such processes…
Using our recently improved understanding of star cluster physics, we are now within reach of answering a number of fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Star cluster physics has immediate bearing on questions ranging from the…
The implementation of star formation and stellar feedback in cosmological simulations plays a critical role in shaping galaxy properties. In the first paper of the series, we presented a new method to model star formation as a collection of…
Extrasolar planets and belts of debris orbiting post-main-sequence single stars may become unbound as the evolving star loses mass. In multiple star systems, the presence or co-evolution of the additional stars can significantly complicate…
Our understanding of massive star evolution is in flux, due to recent upheavals in our view of mass loss, and observations of a high binary fraction among O-type stars. Mass-loss rates for standard metallicity-dependent winds of hot stars…
The fundamental properties of stellar clusters, such as the age or the total initial mass in stars, are often inferred from population synthesis models. The predicted properties are then used to constrain the physical mechanisms involved in…
We have run direct N-body simulations to investigate the impact of stellar evolution and dynamics on the structural properties of young massive (3x10^4 solar masses) star clusters (SCs) with different metallicities (Z=1, 0.1, 0.01 solar…
We consider the hypothesis that the formation of elliptical galaxies includes a phase in which star formation is mostly restricted to massive stars, with the bias towards high mass stars increasing with elliptical galaxy mass. The mass…
The rotational evolution of a young stellar population can give informations about the rotation pattern of more evolved clusters. Combined with rotational period values of thousands of young stars and theoretical propositions about the…
We study the dynamical evolution of a stellar disk orbiting a massive black hole. We explore the role of two-body relaxation, mass segregation, stellar evolution and binary heating in affecting the disk evolution, and consider the impact of…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
In the present paper we combine an N-body code that simulates the dynamics of young dense stellar systems with a massive star evolution handler that accounts in a realistic way for the effects of stellar wind mass loss. We discuss two…
The current status of both the observational evidence and the theory of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is reviewed, with particular attention to the two basic, apparently universal features shown by all observations of nearby…
We use published optical spectral and IR excess data from nine young clusters and associations to study the stellar mass dependent dispersal of circumstellar disks. All clusters older than ~3 Myr show a decrease in disk fraction with…
The study of star cluster evolution necessitates modeling how their density profiles develop from their natal gas distribution. Observational evidence indicates that many star clusters follow a Plummer-like density profile. However, most…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
We present a suite of galaxy formation simulations that directly model star cluster formation and disruption. Starting from a model previously developed by our group, here we introduce several improvements to the prescriptions for cluster…