Related papers: Dynamical age differences among coeval star cluste…
Globular clusters are among the most congested stellar systems in the Universe. Internal dynamical evolution drives them toward states of high central density, while simultaneously concentrating the most massive stars and binary systems in…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
The dynamical evolution of globular clusters is theoretically described by a series of well known events typical of N-body systems. Still, the identification of observational signatures able to empirically describe the stage of dynamical…
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…
The evolution of star clusters is determined by several internal and external processes. Here we focus on two dominant internal effects, namely energy exchange between stars through close encounters (two-body relaxation) and mass-loss of…
Internal dynamical evolution can drive stellar systems into states of high central density. For many star clusters and galactic nuclei, the time scale on which this occurs is significantly less than the age of the universe. As a result,…
We discuss the observational properties of a special class of objects (the so-called "Blue Straggler Stars", BSSs) in the framework of using this stellar population as probe of the dynamical processes occurring in high-density stellar…
Blue stragglers in globular clusters are abnormally massive stars that should have evolved off the stellar main sequence long ago. There are two known processes that can create these objects: direct stellar collisions and binary evolution.…
The distribution of size as a function of age observed for star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is very puzzling: young clusters are all compact, while the oldest systems show both small and large sizes. It is commonly…
Blue straggler stars have been proposeed as powerful indicators to measure the dynamical state of Galactic globular clusters. Here we examine for the first time if this framework of blue straggler stars as dynamical clocks, which was…
Star clusters - open and globulars - experience dynamical evolution on time scales shorter than their age. Consequently, open and globular clusters provide us with unique dynamical laboratories for learning about two-body relaxation, mass…
Blue Straggler Stars (BSS) are among the brightest and more massive stars in globular clusters (GCs). For this reason they represent an ideal tool to probe the dynamical evolution of these stellar systems. Here I show, following the results…
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,…
Dynamical evolution plays a key role in shaping the current properties of star clusters and star cluster systems. A detailed understanding of the effects of evolutionary processes is essential to be able to disentangle the properties which…
We investigate the evolution of the radial distribution of Blue Straggler Stars through a set of Monte Carlo simulations of star clusters under a variety of initial conditions. We used a novel technique based on the "artificial…
Globular clusters are collisional systems, meaning that the stars inside them interact on timescales much shorter than the age of the Universe. These frequent interactions transfer energy between stars and set up observable trends that tell…
Globular clusters are stellar dynamical systems which evolve on stellar evolutionary and both internal and external dynamical timescales. Quantitative comparison of cluster properties with realistic evolutionary dynamical models is becoming…
We have used the ``dynamical clock'' to measure the level of dynamical evolution reached by three Galactic globular clusters (namely, NGC 3201, NGC 6316 and NGC 6440). This is an empirical method that quantifies the level of central…
Galactic globular clusters are ancient building blocks of our Galaxy. They represent a very interesting family of stellar systems in which some fundamental dynamical processes have been taking place for more than 10 Gyr, but on time scales…
Our current understanding of the stellar initial mass function and massive star evolution suggests that young globular clusters may have formed hundreds to thousands of stellar-mass black holes, the remnants of stars with initial masses…