Related papers: Formation and dissolution of leaky clusters
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 solar system was most likely born in a star cluster containing at least 1000 stars. It is highly probable that this cluster environment influenced various properties of the solar system like its chemical composition, size and the…
Most stars form as part of a star cluster. The most massive clusters in the Milky Way exist in two groups - loose and compact clusters - with significantly different sizes at the end of the star formation process. After their formation both…
Most stars do not form in isolation but as part of a cluster comprising anywhere between a few dozen to several million stars with stellar densities ranging from 0.01 to several 10$^5$ \Msun pc$^{-3}$. The majority of these clusters…
Most stars form in compact, dense embedded clusters with memberships ranging from a dozen stars to many millions of stars. Embedded clusters containing more than a few hundred stars also contain O stars that disrupt the nebula abruptly.…
We present an analysis of the positions and ages of young star clusters in eight local galaxies to investigate the connection between the age difference and separation of cluster pairs. We find that star clusters do not form uniformly but…
Stars form predominantly in groups which display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes, and other properties. Despite this diversity there exist an underlying structure that can constrain cluster formation theories. We show how combining…
A dense-enough gas-accumulation evolves, over a few Myr of intensifying star formation, to an embedded cluster. If it contains a sufficient amount of mass, O stars form and explosively expel the remaining gas, whereas poorer clusters reduce…
The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the nearest galaxies to us and is one of only few galaxies where the star formation history can be determined from studying resolved stellar populations. We have compiled a new catalogue of ages,…
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…
Young stars form on a wide range of scales, producing aggregates and clusters with various degrees of gravitational self-binding. The loose aggregates have a hierarchical structure in both space and time that resembles interstellar…
In young star clusters, the density can be high enough and the velocity dispersion low enough for stars to collide and merge with a significant probability. This has been suggested as a possible way to build up the high-mass portion of the…
The distribution of the number of clusters as a function of mass M and age T suggests that clusters get eroded or dispersed in a regular way over time, such that the cluster number decreases inversely as an approximate power law with T…
Stars form predominantly in groups usually denoted as clusters or associations. The observed stellar groups display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes and other properties, so it is often assumed that there is no underlying structure in this…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
We report results of the observations of 15 regions in several molecular lines for a statistical study of massive cluster-forming clumps. We identified 24 clumps based on the C18O (J=1-0) data obtained by the NRO 45 m telescope, and found…
Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies, and only 10 per cent of all clusters appear to survive to middle- and old-dynamical age. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical…
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 studied the formation process of star clusters using high-resolution N-body/smoothed particle hydrodynamcs simulations of colliding galaxies. The total number of particles is 1.2x10^8 for our high resolution run. The gravitational…
Mergers of gas-rich galaxies lead to gravitationally driven increases in gas pressure that can trigger intense bursts of star and cluster formation. Although star formation itself is clustered, most newborn stellar aggregates are unbound…