Related papers: Nuclear Star Clusters from Clustered Star Formatio…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of star clusters during their formation, assuming that they are born from a turbulent starless clump of a given mass that is embedded within a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a…
We summarize some recent results from our observational campaign to study the central regions of spiral galaxies of late Hubble type (Scd - Sm). These disk-dominated, bulgeless galaxies have an apparently uneventful merger history. The…
Clusters are the dense inner regions of a wide-spread hierarchy of young stellar structures. They often reveal a continuation of this hierarchy inside of them, to smaller scales, when they are young, but orbital mixing eventually erases…
The Nuclear Stellar Disk has been a highly active star-forming region in the Milky Way for approximately the last 30 million years. Despite hosting prominent clusters like Arches, Quintuplet, and Nuclear Stellar, their combined mass is less…
A literature compilation of nuclear star cluster (NSC) masses is used to study the correlation between global and nuclear properties. A comparison of observational data to the predictions of semi-analytical galaxy formation models places…
Star clusters have hierarchical patterns in space and time, suggesting formation processes in the densest regions of a turbulent interstellar medium. Clusters also have hierarchical substructure when they are young, which makes them all…
During galaxy mergers the gas falls to the center, triggers star formation, and feeds the rapid growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). SMBHs respond to this fueling by supplying energy back to the ambient gas. Numerical studies suggest…
The dynamical evolution of super star clusters (SSCs) moving in the background of a dark matter halo has been investigated as a possible event responsible for the formation of bulges in late-type spirals. The underlying physical processes…
We examine the properties of embedded clusters within 1 kiloparsec using new data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as recent results from 2MASS and other ground-based near-infrared surveys. We use surveys of entire molecular clouds…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
The history of star formation in the strong gravitational potential of the Galactic center has been of much interest, recently. We propose that the sub-parsec-scale disk of massive stars orbiting the massive black hole at the Galactic…
The formation of globular clusters is still an unsolved problem. Though most scenarios assume a massive molecular cloud as the progenitor, it is unclear, how the cloud is transformed into a star cluster. Here a scheme of supernova (SN)…
Stars form predominantly in clusters inside dense clumps of molecular clouds that are both turbulent and magnetized. The typical size and mass of the cluster-forming clumps are $\sim 1$ pc and $\sim 10^2 - $ 10$^3$ M$_\odot$, respectively.…
During the last $\sim$ 30 Myr the nuclear stellar disk in the Galactic center has been the most prolific star forming region of the Milky Way when averaged by volume. Remarkably, the combined mass of the only three clusters present today in…
The accretion of massive star clusters via dynamical friction has previously been established to be a likely scenario for the build up of nuclear stellar clusters (NSCs). A remaining issue is whether strong external tidal perturbation may…
The clustered nature of star formation should produce a high degree of structure in the combined phase and chemical space in the Galactic disk. To date, observed structure of this kind has been mostly limited to bound clusters and moving…
In a virialized stellar system, the mean-square velocity is a direct tracer of the energy per unit mass of the system. Here, we exploit this to estimate and compare root-mean-square velocities for a large sample of nuclear star clusters and…
Like many other late-type galaxies, the Milky Way contains a nuclear star cluster. In this work we obtain the basic properties of its dominant old stellar population. Firstly, we derive its structural properties by constructing a stellar…
Galactic nuclei often harbor a disproportionately large amount of star formation activity with respect to their surrounding disks. Not coincidentally, the density of molecular material in galactic nuclei is often also much greater than that…
There are at least 2 distinct mechanisms for the formation of young massive clusters (YMC), all of which require galactic-scale processes. One operates in harrassed fragile galaxies, in the dense cores of low mass galaxies, at the ends of…