Related papers: Stellar disc -- dynamical evolution in a perturbed…
We analyse a high-resolution, fully cosmological, hydrodynamical disc galaxy simulation, to study the source of the double-exponential light profiles seen in many stellar discs, and the effects of stellar radial migration upon the…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
When galactic discs settle and become massive enough, they are able to form stellar bars. These non-axisymmetric structures induce shocks in the gas, causing it to flow to the centre where nuclear structures, such as nuclear discs and…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most compact, high-mass stellar systems still forming at the present day. The precursor clouds to such systems are, however, rare due to their large initial gas mass reservoirs and rapid dispersal…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the birth sights of planetary systems like our own. Disks represent the gaseous dusty matter left after the formation of their central stars. The mass and luminosity of the star, initial disk mass…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
The Milky Way Galaxy hosts a four million solar mass black hole, Sgr A*, that underwent a major accretion episode approximately 3-6 Myr ago. During the episode, hundreds of young massive stars formed in a disc orbiting Sgr A* in the central…
We present new proper motions from the 10 m Keck telescopes for a puzzling population of massive, young stars located within 3.5" (0.14 pc) of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. Our proper motion measurements have…
The origin of the population of very massive stars observed within $\sim 0.4$ pc of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre is a mystery. Tidal forces from the black hole would likely inhibit {\it in situ} star formation whilst…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
Nuclear stellar cluster (NSCs) are known to exist around massive black holes (MBHs) in galactic nuclei. Two formation scenarios were suggested for their origin: Build-up of NSCs and Continuous in-situ star-formation. Here we study the…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…
In the present-day universe, it appears that most, and perhaps all, massive stars are born in star clusters. It also appears that all star clusters contain stars drawn from an approximately universal initial mass function, so that almost…
The empirical laws of star formation suggest that galactic-scale gravity is involved, but they do not identify the actual triggering mechanisms for clusters in the final stages. Many other triggering processes satisfy the empirical laws…
Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution due to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work…
We study the growth of stellar discs of Milky Way-sized galaxies using a suite of cosmological simulations. We calculate the half-mass axis lengths and axis ratios of stellar populations split by age in isolated galaxies with stellar mass…
Sub-virial gravitational collapse is one mechanism by which star clusters may form. Here we investigate whether this mechanism can be inferred from observations of young clusters. To address this question, we have computed SPH simulations…
Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical time the clusters disrupt thereby (i) feeding a hot kinematical stellar component into…
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…
Recent observations have revealed that at least several old globular clusters (GCs) in the Galaxy have discrete distributions of stars along the Mg-Al anti-correlation. In order to discuss this recent observation, we construct a new…