Related papers: Young and intermediate-age massive star clusters
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
The currently available empirical evidence on the star formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters, mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, strongly…
We review many of the basic properties of star cluster systems, and focus in particular on how they relate to their host galaxy properties and ambient environment. The cluster mass and luminosity functions are well approximated by…
Most stars form in dense star clusters deeply embedded in residual gas. These objects must therefore be seen as the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. With this contribution some physical processes that act in the very early and also…
Globular clusters host complex stellar populations whose chemical signatures suggest early (3 Myr - 1 Gyr) retention and reprocessing of stellar ejecta, yet direct evidence for intracluster gas is lacking. Here we present a unified…
The Interstellar Medium has a fractal structure, in the sense that gas and dust distribute in a hierarchical and self-similar manner. Stars in new-born cluster probably follow the same fractal patterns of their parent molecular clouds.…
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 existence of older stars within a young star cluster can be interpreted to imply that star formation occurs on time scales longer than a free-fall time of a pre-cluster cloud core. Here the idea is explored that these older stars are…
Photometrically distinct nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are common in late-type-disk and spheroidal galaxies. The formation of NSCs is inevitable in the context of normal star formation in which a majority of stars form in clusters. A young,…
Star formation is a fundamental process for galactic evolution. One issue over the last several decades has been determining whether star formation is induced by external triggers or is self-regulated in a closed system. The role of an…
Numerical simulations of a Milky Way-size galaxy demonstrate that globular clusters with the properties similar to observed can form naturally at z > 3 in the concordance Lambda-CDM cosmology. The clusters in our model form in the strongly…
Populations of young star clusters show significant differences even among "normal" disk galaxies. In this contribution I discuss how properties of young cluster systems are related to those of their host galaxies, based on a recent study…
Young massive clusters are as young as open clusters but more massive and compact compared with typical open clusters. The formation process of young massive clusters is still unclear, and it is an open question whether the formation…
When the cosmic star formation history peaks (z ~ 2), galaxies vigorously fed by cosmic reservoirs are gas dominated and contain massive star-forming clumps, thought to form by violent gravitational instabilities in highly turbulent…
Recent observations of young embedded clumpy clusters and statistical identifications of binary star clusters have provided new insights into the formation process and subsequent dynamical evolution of star clusters. The early dynamical…
Most formation scenarios of globular clusters assume a molecular cloud as the progenitor of the stellar system. However, it is still unclear, how this cloud is transformed into a star cluster, i.e. how the destructive processes related to…
In the first part of this article, we review observations of the mass and luminosity functions of young and old star cluster systems. We also review some of the physical processes that may determine the characteristic mass of globular…
Young massive star clusters spanning $\sim 10^4 - 10^8 M_\odot$ in mass have been observed to have similar surface brightness profiles. Recent hydrodynamical simulations of star cluster formation have also produced star clusters with this…
Massive star clusters are often used as tracers of galaxy formation and assembly. In order to do so, we must understand their properties at formation, and how those properties change with time, galactic environment, and galaxy assembly…
A significant fraction of stars in globular clusters (about 70%-85%) exhibit peculiar chemical patterns with strong abundance variations in light elements along with constant abundances in heavy elements. These abundance anomalies can be…