Related papers: The dynamics of star-forming regions - which mecha…
The existence of older stars within a young star cluster can be interpreted to imply that star formation occurs on time scales longer than a free-fall time of a pre-cluster cloud core. Here the idea is explored that these older stars are…
The efficiency of star formation, defined as the ratio of the stellar to total (gas and stellar) mass, is observed to vary from a few percent in regions of dispersed star formation to about a third in cluster-forming cores. This difference…
We present a new implementation of star formation in cosmological simulations, by considering star clusters as a unit of star formation. Cluster particles grow in mass over several million years at the rate determined by local gas…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
The quenching of star formation activity represents a critical phase for a non-negligible fraction of the observed galaxy population at all cosmic epochs, marking a transition from an epoch of intense mass growth to an extended period of…
It has been a longstanding problem to determine, as far as possible, the characteristic masses of stars in terms of fundamental constants; the almost complete invariance of this mass as a function of the star-forming environment suggests…
Star clusters are found in all sorts of environments and their formation and evolution is inextricably linked to the star formation process. Their eventual destruction can result from a number of factors at different times, but the process…
We present a study of the spectroscopic and photometric properties of galaxies in six nearby clusters. We perform a partial correlation analysis on our dataset to investigate whether the correlation between star formation rates in galaxies…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
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…
Violent relaxation -- the protocluster dynamical response to the expulsion of its leftover star forming gas -- is a short albeit crucial episode in the evolution of star clusters and star cluster systems. In this contribution, I survey how…
We review many of the basic properties of star cluster systems, and focus in particular on how they relate to their host galaxy properties and ambient environment. The cluster mass and luminosity functions are well approximated by…
The observed properties of galaxies are strongly dependent on both their total stellar mass and their morphology. Furthermore, the environment is known to play a strong role in shaping them. The galaxy population in the local universe that…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the initial kinematic structure of the gas in star-forming molecular clouds. We compare the results from two large-scale hydrodynamical simulations of star cluster formation that…
Star clusters are born in a highly compact configuration, typically with radii of less than about 1 pc roughly independently of mass. Since the star-formation efficiency is less than 50 per cent by observation and because the residual gas…
We investigate how star formation efficiency can be significantly decreased by the removal of a molecular cloud's envelope by feedback from an external source. Feedback from star formation has difficulties halting the process in dense gas…
During the last two decades, the focus of star formation research has shifted from understanding the collapse of a single dense core into a star to studying the formation hundreds to thousands of stars in molecular clouds. In this chapter,…
Star formation quenching is one of the key processes that shape the evolution of galaxies. In this study, we investigate the changes in molecular gas and star formation properties as galaxies transit from the star-forming main sequence to…
Star clusters stand at the crossroads between galaxies and single stars. Resolving the formation of star clusters in cosmological simulations represents an ambitious and challenging goal, since modelling their internal properties requires…
Star formation is inefficient. Only a few percent of the available gas in molecular clouds forms stars, leading to the observed low star formation rate (SFR). The same holds when averaged over many molecular clouds, such that the SFR of…