Related papers: Close Stellar Encounters in Young, Substructured, …
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 numerically studied close encounters between a young stellar system hosting a massive, gravitationally fragmenting disk and an intruder diskless star with the purpose to determine the evolution of fragments that have formed in the disk…
We analyze the physical properties of stellar clusters that are detected in massive star-forming regions in the MYStIX project--a comparative, multiwavelength study of young stellar clusters within 3.6 kpc that contain at least one O-type…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
Context: Current exoplanet formation studies tend to overlook the birth environment of stars in clustered environments. The effect of this environment on the planet-formation process, however, is important, especially in the earliest stage.…
Star and planet formation are inextricably linked. In the earliest phases of the collapse of a protostar a disc forms around the young star and such discs are observed for the first several million years of a star's life. It is within these…
Violent relaxation -- the protocluster dynamical response to the expulsion of its residual star forming gas -- is a short albeit crucial episode in the evolution of star clusters and star cluster systems. Because it is heavily driven by…
Optical and X-ray studies have established the prevalence of significant substructure in clusters of galaxies, indicating that clusters are young systems, and that recent major mergers have occurred in many clusters. Numerical simulations…
(Abridged) The formation and evolution of star cluster populations are related to the galactic environment. Cluster formation is governed by processes acting on galactic scales, and star cluster disruption is driven by the tidal field. In…
We examine the properties of embedded clusters within 1 kiloparsec using new data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as recent results from 2MASS and other ground-based near-infrared surveys. We use surveys of entire molecular clouds…
Most stars form in a cluster environment. These stars are initially surrounded by discs from which potentially planetary systems form. Of all cluster environments starburst clusters are probably the most hostile for planetary systems in our…
This paper addresses the questions of what we have learned about how and when dense star clusters form, and what studies of star clusters have revealed about galaxy formation and evolution. One important observation is that globular…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
Observations and theory both suggest that star clusters form sub-virial (cool) with highly sub-structured distributions. We perform a large ensemble of N-body simulations of moderate-sized (N=1000) cool, fractal clusters to investigate…
We simulate the dynamics of fractal star clusters, in order to investigate the evolution of substructure in recently formed clusters. The velocity dispersion is found to be the key parameter determining the survival of substructure. In…
We study the circumstances under which first collisions occur in young and dense star clusters. The initial conditions for our direct $N$-body simulations are chosen such that the clusters experience core collapse within a few million…
Most stars do not form in isolation, but as part of a star cluster or association. These young stars are initially surrounded by protoplanetary discs. In these cluster environments tidal interactions with other cluster members can alter the…
Stars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, ten to twenty per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to…
The presence of protostellar disks can greatly increase the dissipation during close stellar encounters, leading to the formation of a significant population of binaries during the initial collapse and virialization of a cluster. We have…
(abridged) The old Star Cluster (SC) systems surrounding any sofar investigated galaxy represent a powerful tool for the understanding of the cosmological evolution of their host galaxies. Phases of enhanced cluster formation can be…