Related papers: Massive star clusters in galaxies
Galaxies cover a wide range of masses and star formation histories. In this review, I summarize some of the evolutionary key features of common galaxy types. At the high-mass end, very rapid, efficient early star formation is observed,…
We present the first results of a project aimed at following the formation and long-term dynamical evolution of star clusters within the potential of a host galaxy. Here we focus on a model evolved within a simplified potential representing…
Multiple images, giant arcs, Einstein cross, fold, cusp, lip, caustics, critical lines, sources, mapping, time delay, arclets, weak shear, magnification bias, depletion, ellipticities, polarization, smearing, convergence, kernel, mass…
Understanding the formation of globular clusters will help us to constrain the evolutionary history of galaxies. For mergers on-going today, it appears that the number of newly created proto-globulars varies with the progenitor types and…
Globular clusters (GCs) provide one way of determining when the most important periods of star formation in dwarf elliptical (dE) galaxies occurred. Thus, they are also useful for comparing the star formation histories of dwarf and giant…
Globular cluster systems exhibit a bewildering variety of characteristics. No single scenario appears to be able to account for the wide range of specific globular cluster frequencies that are observed in galaxies of various types. The…
It is widely accepted that stars do not form in isolation but result from the fragmentation of molecular clouds, which in turn leads to star cluster formation. Over time, clusters dissolve or are destroyed by interactions with molecular…
Young clusters are observed to form in a variety of interacting galaxies and violent starbursts, a substantial number resembling the progenitors of the well-studied globular clusters in mass and size. By studying young clusters in merger…
Young star clusters (YSCs) appear to be a ubiquitous product of star formation in local galaxies, thus, they can be used to study the star formation process at work in their host galaxies. Moreover, YSCs are intrinsically brighter that…
In gaussian theories of structure formation, the galaxy cluster abundance is an extremely sensitive probe of the density fluctuation power spectrum and of the density parameter, $\Omega$. We develop this theme by deriving and studying in…
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…
Globular star clusters that formed at the same cosmic time may have evolved rather differently from a dynamical point of view (because that evolution depends on the internal environment) through a variety of processes that tend…
The most massive galaxies in the present-day Universe are found to lie in the centres of rich clusters. They have old, coeval stellar populations suggesting that the bulk of their stars must have formed at early epochs in spectacular…
Large numbers of young stars are formed in merging galaxies, such as the Antennae galaxies. Most of these stars are formed in compact star clusters (i.e., super star clusters), which have been the focus of a large number of studies.…
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…
Massive stars blow powerful winds and eventually explode as supernovae. By doing so, they inject energy and momentum in the circumstellar medium, which is pushed away from the star and piles up to form a dense and expanding shell of gas.…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
The discovery of a population of young galaxies at an epoch when the universe was about one tenth of its current age has shed new light on the question of when and how galaxies formed. Within the context of popular models this is the…
Current 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 observations) strongly suggests that star CLUSTER…
The question whether or not massive stars can form in isolation or only in star clusters is of great importance for the theory of (massive) star-formation as well as for the stellar initial mass function of whole galaxies (IGIMF-theory).…