Related papers: The physical properties of Cluster Chains
Stellar clusters are critical constituents within galaxies: they are the result of highest-density star formation, and through their spatially and temporally correlated feedback they regulate their host galaxy evolution. We present a novel…
The proper motions (PMs) of OB stars in Cygnus have recently been found to exhibit two large-scale kinematic patterns suggestive of expansion. We perform a 3D traceback on these OB stars, the newly-identified OB associations and related…
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…
The existence of complex stellar populations in some star clusters challenges the understanding of star formation. E.g. the ONC or the sigma Orionis cluster host much older stars than the main bulk of the young stars. Massive star clusters…
We have spectroscopically identified about 100 G-, K- and M-type members of the Scorpius Centaurus complex. To deduce the age of these young stars we compare their Li $\lambda$6708 absorption line strengths against those of stars in the TW…
The interplay between the formation of stars, stellar feedback and cloud properties strongly influences the star formation history of giant molecular clouds. The formation of massive stars leads to a variety of stellar clusters, ranging…
Observations indicate that in young stellar clusters the binary fraction for massive stars is higher than for solar mass stars. For the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) there is a binary frequency of ~ 50% for solar-mass stars compared to 70-100%…
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…
A new formation scenario for omega-Cen is presented, in which omega-Cen has formed from a star cluster complex (= super-cluster). The star-burst which has led to the formation of this cluster of star clusters was triggered by the infall and…
To distinguish between the different theories proposed to explain massive star formation, it is crucial to establish the distribution, the extinction, and the density of low-mass stars in massive star-forming regions. We analyze deep X-ray…
We present high resolution interferometric and single dish observations of molecular gas in the Serpens cluster-forming core. Star formation does not appear to be homogeneous throughout the core, but is localised in spatially- and…
The concept that stars form in the modern era began some 60 years ago with the key observation of expanding OB associations. Now we see that these associations are an intermediate scale in a cascade of hierarchical structures that begins on…
The young stellar population data of the Perseus, Ophiuchus and Serpens molecular clouds are obtained from the Spitzer c2d legacy survey in order to investigate the spatial structure of embedded clusters using the nearest neighbour and…
We discuss the properties of companions to B stars in the Scorpius-Centaurus association (age ~15 Myr, 181 B-stars). We gathered available data combining high contrast imaging samples with evidence of companions from Gaia, from eclipsing…
Omega Cen is composed of several stellar populations. Their history might allow us to reconstruct the evolution of this complex object. We performed a statistical cluster analysis on the large data set provided by Johnson and Pilachowski…
We exploited observational constraints on stars, gas and nucleosynthesis ashes for the closest region of recent massive-star formation, Scorpius-Centaurus OB2, and combined them with 3D hydrodynamical simulations, in order to address…
Most formation scenarios of globular clusters assume a molecular cloud as the progenitor of the stellar system. However, it is still unclear, how this cloud is transformed into a star cluster, i.e. how the destructive processes related to…
Most old globular clusters (GCs) in the Galaxy are observed to have internal chemical abundance spreads in light elements. We discuss a new GC formation scenario based on hierarchical star formation within fractal molecular clouds. In the…
While chemical composition spreads are now believed to be a universal characteristic of globular clusters (GCs), not all of them present multiple populations in their color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs). Here we present a new scenario for the…
Scorpius-Centaurus is the nearest OB association and its hundreds of members were divided into sub-groups, including Lower Centaurus Crux. Here we study the dynamics of the Lower Centaurus Crux area stellar content. We report the revelation…