Related papers: Clusters: age scales for stellar physics
Old open clusters are useful tools to study the Galactic disk properties, both present and past. Populous samples with properties determined both accurately and homogenously are necessary to draw reliable conclusions. We present here our…
Globular cluster ages provide both an important test of models of globular cluster formation and a powerful method to constrain the assembly history of galaxies. Unfortunately, measuring the ages of unresolved old stellar populations has…
The rotation-mass-age relationship offers a promising avenue for measuring the ages of field stars, assuming the attendant uncertainties to this technique can be well characterized. We model stellar angular momentum evolution starting with…
Using our recently improved understanding of star cluster physics, we are now within reach of answering a number of fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Star cluster physics has immediate bearing on questions ranging from the…
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in Universe. They are very important as both cosmological probes and astrophysical laboratories. Several methods have been developed to detect galaxy clusters with different techniques (optical,…
Star clusters are studied widely both as benchmarks for stellar evolution models and in their own right. Cluster age and mass distributions within galaxies are probes of star formation histories, and of cluster formation and disruption…
Asteroseismology can make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the formation history and evolution of our Galaxy by providing precisely determined stellar properties for thousands of stars in different regions of the Milky…
Stellar ages are key for determining the formation history of the Milky Way, but are difficult to measure precisely. Furthermore, methods that use chemical abundances to infer ages may entangle the intrinsic evolution of stars with the…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
The ages of the most common stars - low-mass (cool) stars like the Sun, and smaller - are difficult to derive because traditional dating methods use stellar properties that either change little as the stars age or are hard to measure. The…
We review recent work that investigates the formation of stellar clusters, ranging in scale from globular clusters through open clusters to the small scale aggregates of stars observed in T associations. In all cases, recent advances in…
Most stars do not form in isolation but as part of a cluster comprising anywhere between a few dozen to several million stars with stellar densities ranging from 0.01 to several 10$^5$ \Msun pc$^{-3}$. The majority of these clusters…
The large majority of extragalactic star cluster studies done to date have essentially used two or three-passband aperture photometry, combined with theoretical stellar population synthesis models, to obtain age estimates. The accuracy to…
The abundance of galaxy clusters in the low-redshift universe provides an important cosmological test, constraining a product of the initial amplitude of fluctuations and the amount by which they have grown since early times. The degeneracy…
Given the importance of clusters to the fields of cosmology and galaxy evolution, it is critical to understand how the cluster detection process affects (biases) ones scientific conclusions derived from a given cluster sample. I review the…
To date, Galactic Astronomy has largely concerned itself with astrophysical processes, and with the locations, space motions and compositions of objects. Consider, for example, the elucidation of the components of the Galaxy over the past…
Stellar clusters are important for astrophysics in many ways, for instance as optimal tracers of the Galactic populations to which they belong or as one of the best test bench for stellar evolutionary models. Gaia DR1, with TGAS, is just…
This review discusses (i) dynamical methods for determining the masses of Galactic and extragalactic star clusters, (ii) dynamical processes and their time-scales for the evolution of clusters, including evaporation, mass segregation, core…
Globular clusters contain multiple stellar populations, with some previous generation of stars polluting the current stars with heavier elements. Understanding the history of globular clusters is helpful in understanding how galaxies merged…
More than 50 years have elapsed since the first studies of star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds. The wealth of data accumulated since then has not only revealed a large cluster system, but also a diversified one, filling loci in the age,…