Related papers: Dynamical Simulations of the First Globular Cluste…
Massive clusters of galaxies have been found as early as 3.9 Billion years (z=1.62) after the Big Bang containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs. Cosmological simulations using the current cold dark matter paradigm predict these…
Understanding the formation of the first objects in the universe critically depends on knowing whether the properties of small dark matter structures at high-redshift (z > 15) are different from their more massive lower-redshift…
We point out that the usual self-similarity in cold dark matter models is broken by encounters with individual normal galactic stars on sub-pc scale. Tidal heating and stripping must have redefined the density and velocity structures of the…
We present N-body simulations of globular clusters, in orbits around the Galaxy, in order to study quantitatively and geometrically the tidal effects they encounter. The clusters are modelised with multi-mass King-Michie models (Michie…
We present a series of simple, largely analytical models to compute the effects of disruption on the mass function of star clusters. Our calculations include evaporation by two-body relaxation and gravitational shocks and mass loss by…
The globular clusters that we observe in galaxies may be only a fraction of the initial population. Among the evolutionary influences on the population is the destruction of globular clusters by tidal forces as the cluster moves through the…
The hierarchical mergers that form the haloes of dark matter surrounding galaxies, groups and clusters are not entirely efficient, leaving substantial amounts of dense substructure, in the form of stripped halo cores or `subhaloes',…
The orbital decay and tidal disruption of a star cluster in a galaxy is studied in an analytical manner. Owing to dynamical friction, the star cluster spirals in toward the center of the galaxy. Simultaneously, the galactic tidal field…
Extremely rich populations of globular clusters, numbering ten thousand or more, surround the central giant galaxies in rich clusters. I discuss some recent spectroscopic and photometric observations of these rich globular clusters…
In about 40% of the Local Group galaxies star clusters have been detected so far, but the census is still incomplete. The properties of these clusters are briefly reviewed, and the impact of galaxy environment on the evolution and survival…
The relaxation time at the half-mass radius of Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) is typically within a few Gyr. Hence, the majority of GGCs are expected to be well relaxed systems, given their age is around 12-13 Gyr. So any initial radial…
This paper explores if, and to what an extent, the stellar populations of early type galaxies can be traced through the colour distribution of their globular cluster systems. The analysis, based on a galaxy sample from the Virgo ACS data,…
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…
Spiral galaxies have most of their stellar mass in a large rotating disk, and only a modest fraction in a central spheroidal bulge. This poses a major challenge for cosmological models of galaxy formation. Galaxies form at the centre of…
The onset of spiral structure in galaxies appears to occur between redshifts 1.4 and 1.8 when disks have developed a cool stellar component, rotation dominates over turbulent motions in the gas, and massive clumps become less frequent.…
The galactic population of globular clusters are old, dense star systems, with a typical cluster containing $10^4 - 10^6$ stars. As an old population of stars, globular clusters contain many collapsed and degenerate objects. As a dense…
We show that hard encounters in the central regions of globular clusters embedded in dark matter (DM) haloes necessarily lead to the formation of gravitationally-bound stellar envelopes that extend far beyond the nominal tidal radius of the…
We investigate a scenario where the formation of Globular Clusters (GCs) is triggered by high-speed collisions between infalling atomic-cooling subhalos during the assembly of the main galaxy host, a special dynamical mode of star formation…
We have investigated the formation of globular cluster (GC) systems in the fiducial semi-analytic galaxy formation model of Cole et al. We assume that GCs are formed at high-redshift (z > 5) in proto-galactic fragments, and during the…
How did the dwarf galaxy population of present-day galaxy clusters form and grow over time? We address this question by analysing the history of dark matter subhaloes in the Millennium-II cosmological simulation. A semi-analytic model…