Related papers: Evidence for Two Distinct Stellar Initial Mass Fun…
We present velocity dispersion measurements of 20 Local Group stellar clusters (7 < log(age [yrs]) < 10.2) from integrated light spectra and examine the evolution of the stellar mass-to-light ratio, Upsilon_*. We find that the clusters…
We present new measurements of the velocity dispersions of eleven Local Group globular clusters using spatially integrated spectra, to expand our sample of clusters with precise integrated-light velocity dispersions to 29, over 4 different…
We investigate the long-term dynamical evolution of two distinct stellar populations of low-mass stars in globular clusters in order to study whether the energy equipartition process can explain the high number of stars harbouring abundance…
In this thesis we study several aspects of dynamical evolution of stellar clusters. The results of more than 200 simulations of single-mass star clusters with different initial total mass, half-mass radius and galactocentric distance, are…
Recently de Marchi, Paresce & Pulone (2007) studied a sample of twenty globular clusters and found that all clusters with high concentrations have steep stellar mass-functions while clusters with low concentration have comparatively shallow…
We present the results of a survey of N-body simulations aimed at studying the effects of the long-term dynamical evolution on the stellar mass function (MF) of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters. Our simulations show that if…
We present a new technique to quantify cluster-to-cluster variations in the observed present-day stellar mass functions of a large sample of star clusters. Our method quantifies these differences as a function of both the stellar mass and…
We present a series of simple, largely analytical models to compute the effects of disruption on the mass function of star clusters. Our calculations include evaporation by two-body relaxation and gravitational shocks and mass loss by…
We use stellar and dynamical mass profiles, combined with a stellar population analysis, of 32 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) at redshifts of 0.05 $\leq z \leq$ 0.30, to place constraints on their stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF). We…
We highlight the impact of cluster-mass-dependent evolutionary rates upon the evolution of the cluster mass function during violent relaxation, that is, while clusters dynamically respond to the expulsion of their residual star-forming gas.…
We use N-body simulations to model the 12 Gyr evolution of a suite of star clusters with identical initial stellar mass functions over a range of initial cluster masses, sizes, and orbits. Our models reproduce the distribution of…
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…
We present the results of a comprehensive analysis of the structure and kinematics of six Galactic globular clusters. By comparing the results of the most extensive photometric and kinematical surveys available to date with suited dynamical…
We investigate the stellar populations of galaxies in clusters at different dynamical stages, aiming to identify possible effects of the relaxation state of the cluster or subcluster on the star formation histories of its galaxies. We have…
The evolution of star clusters is largely affected by the tidal field generated by the host galaxy. It is thus in principle expected that under the assumption of an "universal" initial cluster mass function the properties of the evolved…
We investigate the star-formation properties of dynamically relaxed galaxy clusters as a function of cluster mass for 308 low-redshift clusters drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) C4 cluster catalog. It is important to establish…
A number of recent observational studies of Galactic globular clusters have measured the variation in the slope of a cluster's stellar mass function $\alpha$ with clustercentric distance $r$. In order to gather a deeper understanding of the…
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…
The fundamental properties of stellar clusters, such as the age or the total initial mass in stars, are often inferred from population synthesis models. The predicted properties are then used to constrain the physical mechanisms involved in…
Mass segregation in star clusters is often thought to indicate the onset of energy equipartition, where the most massive stars impart kinetic energy to the lower-mass stars and brown dwarfs/free floating planets. The predicted net result of…