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The kinematics of newly-formed star clusters are interesting both as a probe of the state of the gas clouds from which the stars form, and because they influence planet formation, stellar mass segregation, cluster disruption, and other…
We present the results of a set of N-body simulations following the long-term evolution of the rotational properties of star cluster models evolving in the external tidal field of their host galaxy, after an initial phase of violent…
A significant fraction of clusters of galaxies are observed to have substructure, which implies that merging between clusters and subclusters is a rather common physical process of cluster formation. It still remains unclear how cluster…
Stars in globular clusters (GCs) exhibit a peculiar chemical pattern with strong abundance variations in light elements along with a constant abundance in heavy elements. These abundance anomalies can be explained by a primordial pollution…
During star cluster formation, ongoing mass accretion is resisted by stellar feedback in the form of protostellar outflows from the low-mass stars and photo-ionization and radiation pressure feedback from the massive stars. We model the…
Dense star clusters expand until their sizes are limited by the tidal field of their host galaxy. During this expansion phase the member stars evolve and lose mass. We show that for clusters with short initial relaxation time scales (<~100…
More and more observations indicate that young star clusters could retain imprints of their formation process. In particular, the degree of substructuring and rotation are possibly the direct result of the collapse of the parent molecular…
Mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies trigger violent starbursts that - over timescales of $> 100$ Myr and regions $> 10$ kpc - form massive and compact star clusters comparable in mass and radii to Galactic globular clusters. The star…
A star cluster in a galactic nucleus sinks toward the galactic center due to dynamical friction. As it spirals inward, the cluster loses mass due to stellar evolution, relaxation driven evaporation, and tidal stripping, eventually…
The initial sizes and masses of massive star clusters provide information about the cluster formation process and also determine how cluster populations are modified and destroyed, which have implications for using clusters as tracers of…
This chapter reviews the dynamical processes in young stellar clusters. The accretion of gas by individual stars affects the dynamics of the cluster, and the masses of the stars. Dynamical mass segregation cannot explain the degree of mass…
We present the results of a study aimed at exploring the evolution towards energy equipartition in star cluster models with different initial degrees of anisotropy in the velocity distribution. Our study reveals a number of novel aspects of…
We explore the constraints on globular cluster formation provided by the observed conditions in starbursts where globulars are currently forming, and by the observed properties of young and old globular clusters. We note that the pressure…
Star clusters form in dense, hierarchically collapsing gas clouds. Bulk kinetic energy is transformed to turbulence with stars forming from cores fed by filaments. In the most compact regions, stellar feedback is least effective in removing…
The majority of discovered exoplanets have been observed orbiting field stars as opposed to within a star cluster. To determine whether the lack of observed exoplanets in star clusters is due to gravitational perturbations or observational…
First-generation (Population III) stars in the universe play an important role inearly enrichment of heavy elements in galaxies and intergalactic medium and thus affect the history of galaxies. The physical and chemical properties of…
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…
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…
We construct a family of semi-analytic models for young open clusters, including a gaseous component and varying assumptions about the distribution function for the stellar component. The parameters of these models are informed by observed…
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…