Related papers: How do bound star clusters form?
Young stars form on a wide range of scales, producing aggregates and clusters with various degrees of gravitational self-binding. The loose aggregates have a hierarchical structure in both space and time that resembles interstellar…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
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…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
The properties of old globular cluster systems in galaxy halos are used to infer quantitative constraints on aspects of generic star (cluster) formation. First, the spatial distribution of globulars in three large galaxies, together with…
I assess the similarities and differences between the star-formation modes in quiescent spiral galaxies versus those in violent starburst regions. As opposed to the quiescent star-formation mode in spiral galaxies, current empirical…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
Stars mostly form in groups consisting of a few dozen to several ten thousand members. For 30 years, theoretical models provide a basic concept of how such star clusters form and develop: they originate from the gas and dust of collapsing…
Recent observations have revealed a variety of young star clusters, including embedded systems, young massive clusters, and associations. We study the formation and dynamical evolution of these clusters using a combination of simulations…
It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely independent of any particular model of…
We investigate the formation and early evolution of star clusters assuming that they form from a turbulent starless clump of given mass bounded inside a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a particular mass surface…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
Observations suggest that star formation occurs in only one or two crossing times for a range of scales spanning a factor of 1000. These observations include (1) measurements of embedded cluster ages in comparison with the cloud core…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
The accretion of metal-poor gas sustains galactic star formation. In the Milky Way, this process is fueled by high-velocity clouds (HVCs), yet their fundamental properties have remained elusive in the absence of stellar tracers. Here we…
Recent progress in the understanding of star formation is summarized. A consistent picture is emerging where molecular clouds form with turbulent velocity fields and clumpy substructure, imprinted already during their formation. The clouds…
We investigate the formation of star clusters in an unbound GMC, where the supporting kinetic energy is twice as large as the cloud's self-gravity. This cloud manages to form a series of star clusters and disperse, all within roughly 2…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of star clusters during their formation, assuming that they are born from a turbulent starless clump of a given mass that is embedded within a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a…