Related papers: Massive star cluster formation and evolution in ti…
We discuss the structural change and degree of mass segregation of young dense star clusters within about 100pc of the Galactic center. In our calculations, which are performed with GRAPE-6, the equations of motion of all stars and binaries…
Growing evidence has been accumulated for that some gas-rich dwarf galaxies are formed from material liberated by galaxy collisions and/or mergers. Also, gas-poor dwarf elliptical galaxies are often found in the central regions of clusters…
We study the resolved stellar populations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby Centaurus A/M83 group of galaxies. Our goal is to characterize their evolutionary history and to investigate eventual similarities or differences with the dwarf…
Stellar population studies of globular clusters have suggested that the brightest clusters in the Galaxy might actually be the remnant nuclei of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. If the present Galactic globular clusters formed within larger…
Galaxy interactions expel a significant amount of stars and gas into the surrounding environment. I review the formation and evolution of the tidal debris spawned during these collisions, and describe how this evolution depends on the large…
We present an original study of the dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 4214. We use archival optical and UV images obtained with WFPC2 and STIS on-board the Hubble Space Telescope. We explain the process followed to obtain high-quality photometry…
Some of the most massive globular clusters of our Milky Way, such as for example omega-Centauri, show a mixture of stellar populations spanning a few Gyr in age and 1.5 dex in metallicities. In contrast, standard formation scenarios predict…
We revisit the hypothesis that dense galactic nuclei are formed from inspiraling globular clusters. Recent advances in understanding of the continuous formation of globular clusters over cosmic time and the concurrent evolution of the…
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…
We follow the evolution of disk galaxies within a cluster that forms hierarchically in a cold dark matter N-body simulation. At a redshift z=0.5 we select several dark matter halos that have quiet merger histories and are about to enter the…
Recently, very massive compact stellar systems have been discovered in the intracluster regions of galaxy clusters and in the nuclear regions of late-type disk galaxies. It is unclear how these compact stellar systems -- known as…
The ubiquity of star-forming dwarf galaxies (SFDG) in the local Universe allows us to trace their evolution in all type of environments, from voids to rich clusters. SFDGs in low-density regions are still assembling their mass, they often…
Context: Dwarf galaxies can arise from self-gravitating structures emerging from tidal tails. What fraction of the known dwarf galaxies in the Local Universe can have this origin is still a matter of debate. Aims: In our effort to…
It has been shown that ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) have higher specific frequencies of globular clusters on average than other dwarf galaxies with similar luminosities. The UDG NGC5846-UDG1 is among the most extreme examples of globular…
We present a statistical observational study of the tidal dwarf (TD) population in the nearby Universe, by exploiting a large, homogeneous catalogue of galaxy mergers compiled from the SDSS. 95% of TD-producing mergers involve two spiral…
We examine the origins of the bimodality observed in the global properties of galaxies around a stellar mass of 3x10^10 M_sun by comparing the environmental dependencies of star-formation for the giant and dwarf galaxy populations. The…
The study of the very young open cluster NGC 6231 clearly shows the presence of a mass segregation for the most massive stars. These observations, combined with those concerning other young objects and very recent numerical simulations,…
Clump clusters and chain galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field are examined for bulges in the NICMOS images. Approximately 50% of the clump clusters and 30% of the chains have relatively red and massive clumps that could be young bulges.…
After the stars of a new, embedded star cluster have formed they blow the remaining gas out of the cluster. Especially winds of massive stars and definitely the on-set of the first supernovae can remove the residual gas from a cluster. This…
We have searched for compact stellar structures within 17 tidal tails in 13 different interacting galaxies using F606W- and F814W- band images from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The sample of…