Related papers: How did globular clusters lose their gas?
The self-enrichment scenario for globular clusters (GC) requires large amounts of residual gas after the initial formation of the first stellar generation. Recently, Krause et al. (2012) found that supernovae may not be able to expel that…
It is suggested that there have been at least two physically distinct epochs of massive cluster formation. The first generation of globular clusters may have formed as halo gas was compressed by shocks driven inward by ionization fronts…
The decay of globular clusters to the center of their mother galaxy corresponds to carrying a quantity of mass sufficient to sustain the gravitational activity of a small pre-existing nucleus and to accrete it in a significant way. This is…
Globular clusters are among the oldest objects in galaxies, and understanding the details of their formation and evolution can bring valuable insight into the early history of galaxies. This review summarises the current knowledge about the…
Continued star formation over the lifetime of a galaxy suggests that low metalicity gas is steadily flowing in from the circumgalactic medium. Also, cosmological simulations of large-scale structure formation imply that gas is accreted onto…
The ability of young stellar clusters to expel or retain the gas left over after a first episode of star formation is a central issue in all models aiming to explain multiple stellar populations and the peculiar light element abundance…
We study the combined effects of relaxation, tidal heating and binary heating on globular cluster evolution, exploring the physical consequences of external effects and examining evolutionary trends in the Milky Way population. Our analysis…
There is increasing evidence that globular clusters retain sizeable black hole populations at present day. This is supported by dynamical simulations of cluster evolution, which have unveiled the spatial distribution and mass spectrum of…
We have carried out a large set of N-body simulations studying the effect of residual-gas expulsion on the survival rate and final properties of star clusters. We have varied the star formation efficiency, gas expulsion timescale and…
Globular clusters formed in galactic mergers (e.g., The Antennae) can now be studied at different stages of their evolution. In young merger remnants (e.g., NGC 7252) these "second-generation" globulars appear by the hundreds as young halo…
The formation of star clusters involves the growth of smaller, gas-rich subclusters through accretion of gas from the giant molecular cloud within which the subclusters are embedded. The two main accretion mechanisms responsible for this…
We present evidence for cosmological gas accretion onto spiral galaxies in the local universe. The accretion is seen through its effects on the dynamics of the extra-planar neutral gas. The accretion rates that we estimate for two nearby…
The self-enrichment of massive star clusters by p-processed elements is shown to increase significantly with increasing gas density as a result of enhanced star formation rates and stellar scatterings compared to the lifetime of a massive…
The differences in the relationships between the physical parameters and the chemical-element abundances in accreted globular star clusters and those formed inside the Galaxy have been investigated. The information on the supposed formation…
Globular clusters are considerably more complex structures than previously thought, harbouring at least two stellar generations which present clearly distinct chemical abundances. Scenarios explaining the abundance patterns in globular…
In this short communication we consider the possibility that stars less evolved than the polluters are the source of the dilution needed to explain the observed composition of second-generation globular cluster (GC) stars and the Na-O and…
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…
The stellar dynamical evolution of massive star clusters formed during starburst periods leads to the segregation of $\gtrsim10^4 M_\odot$ stellar-mass black hole sub-clusters in their centres. In gas-rich environments, such as galactic…
We investigate a scenario where the formation of Globular Clusters (GCs) is triggered by high-speed collisions between infalling atomic-cooling subhalos during the assembly of the main galaxy host, a special dynamical mode of star formation…
We performed N-body simulations of both individual cluster evolution and subcluster coalescence, demonstrating that cluster evolution and its outcomes strongly depend on the cluster formation process through comparisons of different gas…