Related papers: First, Second and Third Massive Stars in Open Clus…
We have made a new compilation of observations of maximum stellar mass versus cluster membership number from the literature, which we analyse for consistency with the predictions of a simple random drawing hypothesis for stellar mass…
Mass determinations are difficult to obtain and still frequently characterised by deceptively large uncertainties. We review below the various mass estimators used for star clusters of all ages and luminosities. We highlight a few recent…
Globular clusters are often assumed to be good tracers of major star formation episodes in their host galaxies. While observations over the past 2 decades have confirmed the presence of young objects with globular cluster-like properties in…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…
High-mass stars are major players in the chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies. Open clusters and associations represent the natural laboratories to study their evolution. In this review, I will present a personal selection of…
In many different galactic environments the cluster initial mass function (CIMF) is well described by a power-law with index -2. This implies a linear relation between the mass of the most massive cluster (M_max) and the number of clusters.…
Feedback from massive stars plays an important role in the formation of star clusters. Whether a very massive star is born early or late in the cluster formation timeline has profound implications for the star cluster formation and assembly…
In many evolutionary stages, low- and intermediate-mass stars show signs of mixing of the surface material with material from the interior. To account for all the details revealed by the observations it is necessary to include non-standard…
The distribution of mass in the halos of galaxies and galaxy clusters has been probed observationally, theoretically, and in numerical simulations. Yet there is still confusion about which of several suggested parameterized models is the…
We discuss the results of recent 3D simulations of first structure formation in relationship to the formation of the first stars. On the basis of a new, high-resolution AMR simulation (spatial dynamic range = 30,000,000), we conclude that…
We perform a large set of radiation hydrodynamics simulations of primordial star formation in a fully cosmological context. Our statistical sample of 100 First Stars show that the first generation of stars have a wide mass distribution…
A growing fraction of Simple Stellar Population (SSP) models, in an aim to create more realistic simulations capable of including stochastic variation in their outputs, begin their simulations with a distribution of discrete stars following…
We use the block model to generate merger trees for the first star clusters in a LCDM cosmology. Using a simple collapse model and cooling criterion, we determine which halos are able to form stars before being disrupted by mergers. We…
Theoretical considerations lead to the expectation that stars should not have masses larger than about m_{max*}=60-120Msun, while the observational evidence has been ambiguous. Only very recently has a physical stellar mass limit near…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we discuss the initial conditions for Population III star formation, as given by variants of the…
This work observationally addresses the relative distribution of total and optically luminous matter in galaxy clusters by computing the radial profile of the stellar-to-total mass ratio. We adopt state-of-the-art accurate lensing masses…
I review the status of massive star formation theories: accretion from collapsing, massive, turbulent cores; competitive accretion; and stellar collisions. I conclude the observational and theoretical evidence favors the first of these…
Recent data from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that there are realistic prospects for detecting the earliest generation of stars at redshift ~20. These metal-poor, gaseous Population III (Pop III) stars are likely in the mass range…
Star counts at high and intermediate galactic latitudes, in the visible and the near infrared, are used to determine the density law and the initial mass function of the thick disc population. The combination of shallow fields dominated by…
The first stars are assumed to be predominantly massive. Although, due to the low initial abundances of heavy elements the line-driven stellar winds are supposed to be inefficient in the first stars, these stars may loose a significant…