Related papers: A Quick Guide to Nearby Young Association
We review the use of young low mass stars and protostars, or young stellar objects (YSOs), as tracers of star formation. Observations of molecular clouds at visible, infrared, radio and X-ray wavelengths can identify and characterize the…
Young clusters are observed to form in a variety of interacting galaxies and violent starbursts, a substantial number resembling the progenitors of the well-studied globular clusters in mass and size. By studying young clusters in merger…
Direct imaging has led to the discovery of several giant planet and brown dwarf companions. These imaged companions populate a mass, separation and age domain (mass>1MJup, orbits>5AU, age<1Gyr) quite distinct from the one occupied by…
In Galactic studies a distinction is made between (open) star clusters and associations. For barely resolved objects at a distance of several Mpc this distinction is not trivial to make. Here we provide an objective definition by comparing…
Precise measurements of the fundamental properties of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs are key to understanding the physics underlying their formation and evolution. While there has been great progress over the last decade in studying the…
The young star clusters we observe today are the building blocks of a new generation of stars and planets in our Galaxy and beyond. Despite their fundamental role we still lack knowledge about the conditions under which star clusters form…
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…
Background: low-mass stars are the dominant product of the star formation process, and they trace star formation over the full range of environments, from isolated globules to clusters in the central molecular zone. In the past two decades,…
Over the past ten years, there has been a revolution in our understanding of massive young stellar clusters in the Galaxy. Initially, there were no known examples having masses $>10^4$, yet we now know that there are at least a half dozen…
The GAIA space mission is impacting astronomy in many significant ways by providing a uniform, homogeneous and precise data set for over 1 billion stars and other celestial objects in the Milky Way and beyond. Exoplanet science has greatly…
Stars form predominantly in groups which display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes, and other properties. Despite this diversity there exist an underlying structure that can constrain cluster formation theories. We show how combining…
In recent years the census of known satellites in our own Local Group and in nearby galaxy groups has increased substantially due to sensitive wide-area surveys. In the Local Group these surveys have more than doubled its known galaxy…
The understanding and modeling of the structure and evolution of stars is based on statistical physics as well as on hydrodynamics. Today, a precise identification and proper description of the physical processes at work in stellar…
Most Sun-like and higher-mass stars reside in systems that include one or more gravitationally bound stellar companions. These systems offer an important probe of planet formation in the most common stellar systems, while also providing key…
It is an obvious statement that all the galaxies we see today in and around our Local Group have been forming and evolving for a significant fraction of the age of the Universe. It is not a great leap of logic to further state that the…
The knowledge of the ages of stars hosting exoplanets allows us to obtain an overview on the evolution of exoplanets and understand the mechanisms affecting their life. The measurement of the ages of stars in the Galaxy is usually affected…
The past two decades have seen dramatic progress in our knowledge of the population of young stars of age <200 Myr that lie within 150 pc of the Sun. These nearby, young stars, most of which are found in loose, comoving groups, provide the…
Transiting planets around stars are discovered mostly through photometric surveys. Unlike radial velocity surveys, photometric surveys do not tend to target slow rotators, inactive or metal-rich stars. Nevertheless, we suspect that…
Recent analysis of stellar populations in barred galaxies have focused on the spatial distribution of stellar population ages and metallicities. However, barred galaxies are complex objects where dynamical instabilities play a leading role…
Runaway stars are characterised by their remarkably high space velocities, and the study of their formation mechanisms has attracted considerable interest. Young, nearby runaway stars are the most favorable for identifying their place of…