Related papers: Observational dynamics of low-mass stellar systems
The analysis of the spatial distribution and kinematics of galaxies in clusters allows one to determine the cluster internal dynamics. In this paper, I review the state of the art of this topic. In particular, I summarize what we have…
Recent observations indicate that the progenitors of globular clusters (GCs) at high redshifts had high average stellar surface densities above $10^5\, \mathrm{M}_\odot\, \mathrm{pc}^{-2}$. The internal structure and kinematics of the…
Globular cluster (GC) systems have now been studied in galaxies ranging from dwarfs to giants and spanning the full Hubble sequence of morphological types. Imaging and spectroscopy with the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based…
The study of star clusters plays an important role in our understanding of the Universe since these systems are natural laboratories for testing theories of stellar dynamics and evolution. Particularly, globular clusters (GCs) are one of…
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…
While the dark matter content within the most massive giant and smallest dwarf galaxies has been probed -- spanning a range of over one million in mass -- an important observational gap remains for galaxies of intermediate mass. This gap…
Typical globular clusters (GCs - young and old) host stellar populations with little or no star-to-star variations in heavy elements (e.g., Ca, Fe) nor in age. Nuclear star clusters (NSCs), on the other hand, host complex stellar…
We have used the 2dF spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope to obtain a complete spectroscopic sample of all objects in the magnitude range, Bj= 16.5 to 19.8, regardless of morphology, in an area centred on the Fornax Cluster of…
The abundance of satellite dwarf galaxies has long been considered a crucial test for the current model of cosmology leading to the well-known missing satellite problem. Recent advances in both simulations and observations have allowed to…
We combine in a self-consistent way the constraints from both gravitational lensing and stellar kinematics to perform a detailed investigation of the internal mass distribution, amount of dark matter, and dynamical structure of the 16…
Ultra compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) are dense stellar systems at the border between massive star-clusters and small galaxies. Their on average high optical mass-to-light (M/L) ratio cannot be explained by stellar populations with the…
We first review reasons why dark matter is an interesting issue in connection with star clusters. Next we consider to what extent the presence of dark matter is consistent with their dynamics and structure. We review various model-dependent…
Low-mass compact galaxies (ultracompact dwarfs [UCDs] and compact ellipticals [cEs]) populate the stellar size-mass plane between globular clusters and early-type galaxies. Known to be formed either in-situ with an intrinsically low mass or…
Interacting galaxies often have complexes of hundreds of young stellar clusters of individual masses $\sim 10^{4-6}~M_\odot$ in regions that are a few hundred parsecs across. These cluster complexes interact dynamically, and their…
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…
The relative average minimum projected separations of star clusters in the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) and in tidal dwarfs around the interacting galaxy NGC 5291 are determined as a function of cluster mass to look for…
With the published data of apparent axis ratios for 1109 ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) located in 17 low-redshift (z~ 0.020 - 0.063) galaxy clusters and 84 UDGs in 2 intermediate-redshift (z~ 0.308 - 0.348) clusters, we take advantage of a…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are the densest stellar systems in the Universe. They can be found at the center of all galaxy types, but tend to favor galaxies of intermediate stellar mass around 10$^9\,$M$_{\odot}$[1, 2]. Currently, two main…
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…
A growing number of low luminosity and low surface brightness astronomical objects challenge traditional notions of both galaxies and star clusters. To address this, we propose a definition of galaxy independent of the cold dark matter…