Related papers: Gravitational Focusing and the Star Cluster Initia…
Numerical simulations of star formation have found that a power-law mass function can develop at high masses. In a previous paper, we employed isothermal simulations which created large numbers of sinks over a large range in masses to show…
We report on a series of numerical simulations of gas clouds with self-gravity forming sink particles, adopting an isothermal equation of state to isolate the effects of gravity from thermal physics on the resulting sink mass distributions.…
The formation of star clusters involves the growth of smaller, gas-rich subclusters through accretion of gas from the giant molecular cloud within which the subclusters are embedded. The two main accretion mechanisms responsible for this…
We present a simple physical mechanism that can account for the observed stellar mass spectrum for masses $\ms \simgreat 0.5 \solm$. The model depends solely on the competitive accretion that occurs in stellar clusters where each star's…
We analyse a hydrodynamical simulation of star formation. Sink particles in the simulations which represent stars show episodic growth, which is presumably accretion from a core that can be regularly replenished in response to the…
We present an analysis of different sets of gravitational N-body simulations, all describing the dynamics of discrete particles with a small initial velocity dispersion. They encompass very different initial particle configurations,…
[Abridged] Evidence favouring a Gaussian initial globular cluster mass function has accumulated over recent years. We show that an approximately Gaussian mass function is naturally generated from a power-law mass distribution of…
Essentially all stars form in giant molecular clouds (GMCs). However, inside GMCs, most of the gas does not participate in star formation; rather, denser gas accumulates in clumps in the GMC, with the bulk of the stars in a given GMC…
It is believed that the majority of stars form in clusters. Therefore it is likely that the gas physical conditions that prevail in forming clusters, largely determine the properties of stars that form and in particular the initial mass…
The properties of clusters of galaxies offer key insights into the assembly process of structure in the universe. Numerical simulations of cosmic structure formation in a hierarchical, dark matter dominated universe suggest that galaxy…
We have determined stellar mass functions of 120 Milky Way globular clusters and massive LMC/SMC star clusters based on a comparison of archival Hubble Space Telescope photometry with a large grid of direct N-body simulations. We find a…
The log-normal shape of the mass function for metal-poor halo globular clusters is proposed to result from an initial M^{-2} power law modified rapidly by evaporation, collisions with clouds, and mutual cluster interactions in the dense…
Observations have revealed that most stars are born in clusters. As these clusters typically contain more mass in gas than in stars, accretion can play an important role in determining the final stellar masses. Numerical simulations of gas…
Stars form in regions of very inhomogeneous densities and may have chaotic orbital motions. This leads to a time variation of the accretion rate, which will spread the masses over some mass range. We investigate the mass distribution…
The empirical laws of star formation suggest that galactic-scale gravity is involved, but they do not identify the actual triggering mechanisms for clusters in the final stages. Many other triggering processes satisfy the empirical laws…
Stars form from molecular gas under complex conditions influenced by multiple competing physical mechanisms, such as gravity, turbulence, and magnetic fields. However, accurately identifying the fraction of gas actively involved in star…
Competitive accretion, a process to explain the origin of the IMF, occurs when stars in a common gravitational potential accrete from a distributed gaseous component. We show that concerns recently raised on the efficiency of competitive…
We investigate the physics of gas accretion in young stellar clusters. Accretion in clusters is a dynamic phenomenon as both the stars and the gas respond to the same gravitational potential. Accretion rates are highly non-uniform with…
We simulate the formation and evolution of young star clusters using the combination of SPH simulations and direct N-body simulations. We start by performing SPH simulations of the giant molecular cloud with a turbulent velocity field, a…
We use the inertial-inflow model of massive star formation to describe the formation of globular clusters (GCs) in turbulent molecular clouds. A key aspect of this model is that the maximum stellar mass scales linearly with cloud mass, such…