Related papers: Massive star archeology in globular clusters
The large scale structure of the present Universe is determined by the growth of dark matter density fluctuations and by the dynamical action of dark energy and dark matter. While much progress has been made in recent years in constraining…
The formation of massive stars is an outstanding problem in stellar evolution. However, it is expected that they are (predominantly) born in heirarchical environments within massive young clusters, which in turn are located within larger…
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…
The Galactic Anticenter Stellar Structure (GASS) has been identified with excess surface densities of field stars in several large area sky surveys, and with an unusual, string-like grouping of five globular clusters. At least two of these…
The formation environment of stars in massive stellar clusters is similar to the environment of stars forming in galaxies at a redshift of 1 - 3, at the peak star formation rate density of the Universe. As massive clusters are still forming…
Young open clusters are our laboratories for studying high-mass star formation and evolution. Unfortunately, the information that they provide is difficult to interpret, and sometimes contradictory. In this contribution, I present a few…
Globular clusters in most large galaxies are a mixture of metal-poor and metal-rich (bimodal), but the halo stars are almost entirely metal-rich. This and other lines of evidence argue that the metal-poor globular clusters formed within…
Recent high-resolution observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) reveal that young star clusters of extraordinary luminosity and compactness ("super star clusters") are commonly found in starburst systems. Cluster formation appears…
Most Globular Clusters so far examined host (at least) two stellar populations. This feature requires a two--step process, in which the nuclearly processed matter from a first generation (FG) of stars gives birth to a second generation (SG)…
Massive stars have a profound influence on the Universe, but their formation remains poorly understood. We review the current status of observational and theoretical research in this field, describing the various stages of an evolutionary…
This paper explores if the mean properties of Early-Type Galaxies (ETG) can be reconstructed from "genetic" information stored in their GCs (i.e., in their chemical abundances, spatial distributions and ages). This approach implies that the…
Stellar populations contain the most important information about star clus- ter formation and evolution. Until several decades ago, star clusters were believed to be ideal laboratories for studies of simple stellar populations (SSPs).…
Globular clusters have long been known to contain large excesses of a variety of objects formed through dynamical processes. The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in our knowledge about these systems.
In a series of three papers, we introduced a novel cluster formation model that describes the formation, growth, and disruption of star clusters in high-resolution cosmological simulations. We tested this model on a Milky Way-sized galaxy…
We propose that bound, young massive stellar clusters form from dense clouds that have escape speeds greater than the sound speed in photo-ionized gas. In these clumps, radiative feedback in the form of gas ionization is bottled up,…
Globular clusters are often assumed to be good tracers of major star formation episodes in their host galaxies. While observations over the past 2 decades have confirmed the presence of young objects with globular cluster-like properties in…
Modern hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation are able to predict accurately the rates and locations of the assembly of giant molecular clouds in early galaxies. These clouds could host star clusters with the masses and sizes of real…
Collisions and mergers of gas-rich galaxies trigger bursts of star and cluster formation. Of the thousands of clusters typically formed during a major merger, only the most massive and compact survive for Gigayears as globular clusters…
Star clusters form in dense, hierarchically collapsing gas clouds. Bulk kinetic energy is transformed to turbulence with stars forming from cores fed by filaments. In the most compact regions, stellar feedback is least effective in removing…
Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe, having diameters on order of Mpc. Our work asked whether their shapes (morphologies) change over time as the Universe ages. We observed a sample of 165…