Related papers: Unresolved multiple stars and Galactic clusters' m…
(ABRIDGED) We assess the systematic uncertainties in (young) cluster age, mass, and - to a lesser extent - extinction and metallicity determinations, based on broad-band imaging observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. Our aim here is…
We discuss, from a statistical point of view, some leading issues that deal with the study of stellar populations in fully or partially unresolved aggregates, like globular clusters and distant galaxies. A confident assessment of the…
The problem of estimating the total mass of a visual binary when its orbit is incomplete is treated with Bayesian methods. The posterior mean of a mass estimator is approximated by a triple integral over orbital period, time of periastron…
Derived from first physical principles, a few simple rules are presented that can help in both the planning and interpretation of CCD and IR-array camera observations of resolvable stellar populations. These rules concern the overall size…
O- and B-type stars are often found in binary systems, but the low binary mass-ratio regime is relatively unexplored due to observational difficulties. Binary systems with low mass-ratios may have formed through fragmentation of the…
Mass determinations are difficult to obtain and still frequently characterised by deceptively large uncertainties. We review below the various mass estimators used for star clusters of all ages and luminosities. We highlight a few recent…
We study the uncertainty in galaxy cluster mass estimates derived from X-ray data assuming hydrostatic equilibrium (HE) for the intra cluster gas. Using a Monte-Carlo procedure we generate a general class of mass models allowing very…
The study of binary stars in different astronomical environments offers insights into the dynamical state of the hosting stellar systems. The Binary Fraction in fact plays a crucial role in the dynamical evolution of stellar system,…
Binary stars are predicted to have an important role in the evolution of globular clusters, so we obtained binary fractions for 35 globular clusters that were imaged in the F606W and F814W with the ACS on the Hubble Space Telescope. When…
Binary stars produce an array of dramatic astrophysical phenomena. They allow us to probe stellar structure, nuclear physics, and gravitational wave physics. They also produce the powerful supernovae that allow us to measure the scale of…
We simulate mergers between star clusters embedded within their natal giant molecular cloud. We extract initial conditions from cloud-scale simulations of cluster formation and introduce different prescriptions for primordial binaries. We…
Optically selected clusters of galaxies display a relation between their optical mass estimates and their X-ray luminosities Lx that has a large scatter. A substantial fraction of optically selected clusters have Lx estimates or upper…
In the era of large surveys, yielding thousands of galaxy clusters, efficient mass proxies at all scales are necessary in order to fully utilize clusters as cosmological probes. At the cores of strong lensing clusters, the Einstein radius…
With the advent of wide-field cosmological surveys, we are approaching samples of hundreds of thousands of galaxy clusters. While such large numbers will help reduce statistical uncertainties, the control of systematics in cluster masses…
Weak gravitational lensing by large scale structure affects the number counts of faint galaxies through the ``magnification bias'' and thus affects the measurement of the angular two-point correlation function $\w $. At faint magnitudes the…
Characterization of the binary fractions in star clusters is of fundamental importance for many fields in astrophysics. Observations indicate that the majority of stars are found in binary systems, while most stars with masses greater than…
In this paper, we motivate the use of galaxy clustering measurements using photometric redshift information, including a contribution from flux magnification, as a probe of cosmology. We present cosmological forecasts when clustering data…
The dominant mechanism forming multiple stellar systems in the high-mass regime (M$_\ast \gtrsim $ 8 $M_{\odot}$) remained unknown because direct imaging of multiple protostellar systems at early phases of high-mass star formation is very…
Maximizing the utility of upcoming photometric cluster surveys requires a thorough understanding of the richness-mass relation of galaxy clusters. We use Monte Carlo simulations to study the impact of various sources of observational…
Studies of young clusters have shown that a large fraction of O-/early B-type stars are in binary systems, where the binary fraction increases with mass. These massive stars are present in clusters of a few Myrs, but gradually disappear for…