Related papers: Multiple stellar generations in massive star formi…
The supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center is surrounded by a parsec-scale star cluster, which contains a number of early type stars. The presence of such stars has been called a "paradox of youth" as star formation in the…
Star formation plays a central role in the evolution of galaxies and of the Universe as a whole. Studies of star-forming regions in the local universe have shown that star formation typically occurs in a clustered fashion. Building a…
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 similarity between the mass and spatial distributions of pre-stellar gas cores in star-forming clouds and young stars in clusters provides strong circumstantial evidence that these gas cores are the direct progenitors of individual…
Even after decades of research, the origin of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters remains enigmatic. The question as to whether the galaxy environment plays a role in their formation remains unanswered. To that extent, we…
We investigate the properties and evolution of star particles in two simulations of isolated spiral galaxies, and two galaxies from cosmological simulations. Unlike previous numerical work, where typically each star particle represents one…
Most stars, perhaps even all stars, form in crowded stellar environments. Such star forming regions typically dissolve within ten million years, while others remain bound as stellar groupings for hundreds of millions to billions of years,…
In this contribution, our knowledge of the initial conditions under which massive star formation takes place is reviewed. Massive stars are born in massive clumps of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), hence first the properties of GMCs are…
The study of the very young open cluster NGC 6231 clearly shows the presence of a mass segregation for the most massive stars. These observations, combined with those concerning other young objects and very recent numerical simulations,…
Observations of star-forming galaxies in the distant Universe have confirmed the importance of massive stars in shaping galaxy emission and evolution. Distant stellar populations are unresolved, and the limited data available must be…
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 conditions that lead to self-regulated star formation, star bursts and the formation of massive stellar clusters are discussed. Massive stars have a strong impact on their environment, especially on the evolution of dwarf galaxies which…
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…
A large population of fragile, wide (> 1000 AU) binary systems exists in the Galactic field and halo. These wide binary stars cannot be primordial because of the high stellar density in star forming regions, while formation by capture in…
The majority of stars in the Galactic field and halo are part of binary or multiple systems. A significant fraction of these systems have orbital separations in excess of thousands of astronomical units, and systems wider than a parsec have…
Massive stars have a profound influence on the Universe, but their formation remains poorly understood. We review the current status of observational and theoretical research in this field, describing the various stages of an evolutionary…
We investigate the formation and early evolution of star clusters assuming that they form from a turbulent starless clump of given mass bounded inside a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a particular mass surface…
This paper reviews our current understanding of the possible birth environments of our Solar System. Since most stars form within groups and clusters, the question becomes one of determining the nature of the birth aggregate of the Sun.…
Almost all young stars are found in multiple systems. This suggests that protostellar cores almost always fragment into multiple objects. The observed properties of multiple systems such as their separation distribution and mass ratios…
Young open clusters are our laboratories for studying high-mass star formation and evolution. Unfortunately, the information that they provide is difficult to interpret, and sometimes contradictory. In this contribution, I present a few…