Related papers: Rapid Mass Segregation in Massive Star Clusters
We study the formation and the evolution of galaxy groups in a critical universe, showing the importance of secondary infall for their dynamical evolution. Merging is only slightly accelerated if galaxies have massive halos, because the…
Star clusters have hierarchical patterns in space and time, suggesting formation processes in the densest regions of a turbulent interstellar medium. Clusters also have hierarchical substructure when they are young, which makes them all…
Cloud environment is thought to play a critical role in determining the mechanism of formation of massive stars. In this contribution we review the physical characteristics of the environment around recently formed massive stars. Particular…
Gas expulsion or gas retention is a central issue in most of the models for multiple stellar populations and light element anti-correlations in globular clusters. The success of the residual matter expulsion or its retention within young…
Over the past ten years, there has been a revolution in our understanding of massive young stellar clusters in the Galaxy. Initially, there were no known examples having masses $>10^4$, yet we now know that there are at least a half dozen…
Recent developments relevant to the formation of globular cluster systems in galaxies are discussed, including (1) The age distribution of the oldest Milky Way clusters, (2) Subgroups and possible accretion and merger remnants in the…
We argue that rich star clusters take at least several local dynamical times to form, and so are quasi-equilibrium structures during their assembly. Observations supporting this conclusion include morphologies of star-forming clumps,…
The currently available 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 imaging observations, strongly…
A brief overview of the properties of massive star clusters in early-type galaxies is given. All ellipticals (with only one known exception) host massive star clusters in the form of globular clusters, suggesting that their formation is…
With the availability of large-scale redshift survey data, it is now becoming possible to explore correlations between large-scale structure and the properties and morphologies of galaxy clusters. We investigate the spatial distributions of…
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…
We perform high resolution simulations of forming star clusters as they merge inside giant molecular clouds (GMCs) using hydrodynamics coupled to N-body dynamics to simultaneously model both the gas and stars. We zoom in to previously run…
Stars form with a complex and highly structured distribution. For a smooth star cluster to form from these initial conditions, the star cluster must erase this substructure. We study how substructure is removed using N-body simulations that…
Star cluster formation in giant molecular clouds involves the local collapse of the cloud into small gas-rich subclusters, which can then subsequently collide and merge to build up the final star cluster(s). In this paper, we simulate…
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…
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…
Observations have revealed that most stars are born in clusters. These systems, containing from tens to thousands of stars and typically significant mass in gas in the youngest systems, evolve due to a combination of stellar and star-gas…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
We review possible dynamical formation processes for central massive black holes in dense star clusters. We focus on the early dynamical evolution of young clusters containing a few thousand to a few million stars. One natural formation…
The formation environment of stars in massive stellar clusters is similar to the environment of stars forming in galaxies at a redshift of 1 - 3, at the peak star formation rate density of the Universe. As massive clusters are still forming…