Related papers: Nuclear Star Clusters
We consider the origin of the so-called S stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the very center of the Galaxy. These are usually assumed to be massive main-sequence stars. We argue instead that they are the remnants of…
In this brief note, we would like to point out that large-scale structures like galaxies and superclusters would arise quite naturally in the universe.
Our Galactic Center hosts over 10% of the known massive stars in the Galaxy. The majority of these stars are located in three particularly massive clusters that formed within the past 5 Myr. While these clusters are extraordinary, their…
The radial distribution of globular clusters in galaxies is always less peaked to the centre than the halo stars'. Extending previous work to a sample of HST globular cluster systems in ellipticals, we evaluate the number of clusters lost…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) surrounding supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are among the densest stellar environments in the universe. In these environments, collisions can shape the stellar mass function and produce exotic stellar…
Super Star Clusters (Mecl > 10^5 Msol) are the largest stellar nurseries in our local Universe, containing hundreds of thousands to millions of young stars within a few light years. Many of these systems are found in external galaxies,…
Abridged: In one widely discussed model for the formation of nuclear star clusters (NSCs), massive globular clusters spiral into the center of a galaxy and merge to form the nucleus. It is now known that at least some NSCs coexist with…
A dense-enough gas-accumulation evolves, over a few Myr of intensifying star formation, to an embedded cluster. If it contains a sufficient amount of mass, O stars form and explosively expel the remaining gas, whereas poorer clusters reduce…
If the stellar population of the bulge contains black holes formed in the final core collapse of ordinary stars with M \ga 30 M_{\odot}, then about 25,000 stellar mass black holes should have migrated by dynamical friction into the central…
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…
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…
Analyzing global starburst properties in various kinds of starburst and post-starburst galaxies and relating them to the properties of the star cluster populations they form, I explore the conditions for the formation of massive, compact,…
The Galactic center is a hotbed of star formation activity, containing the most massive star formation site and three of the most massive young star clusters in the Galaxy. Given such a rich environment, it contains more stars with initial…
Protostars and young stars are strongly spatially "clustered" or "correlated" within their natal giant molecular clouds (GMCs). We demonstrate that such clustering leads to the conclusion that the incident bolometric radiative flux upon a…
Star formation is triggered in essentially three ways: (1) the pressures from existing stars collect and squeeze nearby dense gas into gravitationally unstable configurations, (2) random compression from supersonic turbulence makes new…
Globular Cluster (GC) formation seems to be a widespread mode of star formation in extreme starbursts triggered by strong interactions and mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies. We use our detailed chemically consistent evolutionary…
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…
Star formation in starbursts appears to be biased toward compact clusters, with up to 20% of all stars formed in them. Observations with HST show that many of these clusters have luminosities (-9 > Mv > -16), UBVI colors, and half-light…
The realization that most stars form in clusters, raises the question of whether star/planet formation are influenced by the cluster environment. The stellar density in the most prevalent clusters is the key factor here. Whether dominant…
We investigate the structural properties of nuclear star clusters in late-type spiral galaxies. More specifically, we fit analytical models to HST images of 39 nuclear clusters in order to determine their effective radii after correction…