Related papers: Dynamical masses, time-scales, and evolution of st…
Recent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that a strong dynamical and morphological evolution of disk galaxies has occurred in clusters of galaxies. I present the result of the self-consistent high-resolution simulations of…
Analytical estimates of the mass and radial dependence of the rates of galaxy mergers and of tidal interactions are derived for clusters and groups of galaxies, taking into account the tides from the system potential that limit the sizes of…
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
The dynamical evolution of stellar clusters is driven to a large extent by their environment. Several studies so far have considered the effect of tidal fields and their variations, such as, e.g., from giant molecular clouds, galactic…
Interacting galaxies favor the formation of star clusters but are also suspected to affect their evolution through an intense and rapidly varying tidal field. Treating this complex behaviour remains out-of-reach of (semi-)analytical…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
Galactic bulges are complex systems. Once thought to be small-scale versions of elliptical galaxies, advances in astronomical instrumentation (spectroscopy in particular) has revealed a wealth of photometric and kinematic substructure in…
This thesis embraces several aspects of theoretical stellar dynamics in clusters, both analytically and numerically. We try to elucidate the phenomena currently observed in all types of galaxies, including AGNs and quasars, some of the most…
Detailed models of galactic disk formation and evolution require knowledge about the initial conditions under which disk galaxies form, the boundary conditions that affect their secular evolution and the micro-physical processes that drive…
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…
Galaxy interactions expel a significant amount of stars and gas into the surrounding environment. I review the formation and evolution of the tidal debris spawned during these collisions, and describe how this evolution depends on the large…
Observations of rich LMC and SMC clusters reveal an increasing spread in core radius with age. This trend likely represents real physical evolution in these systems. Old Magellanic Cloud clusters appear either extended or compact. Similar…
Tidal forces acting on galaxies in clusters lead to a strong dynamical evolution. In order to quantify the amount of evolution, I run self-consistent N-body simulations of disk galaxies for a variety of models in the hierarchically forming…
Correlations among the independently measured physical properties of globular clusters (GCs) can provide powerful tests for theoretical models and new insights into their dynamics, formation, and evolution. We review briefly some of the…
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…
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 discuss star formation in the turbulent interstellar medium. We argue that morphological appearance and dynamical evolution of the gas is primarily determined by supersonic turbulence, and that stars form via a process we call…
I briefly review some measures of star formation rates in galaxies and discuss their respective uncertainties before outlining the range of star formation rates encountered in starbursts from isolated dwarf through massive gas-rich…
Mass segregation is seen in many star clusters, but whether massive stars form in the center of a cluster or migrate there dynamically is still debated. N-body simulations have shown that early dynamical mass segregation is possible when…
Magnetic stresses collimate protostellar winds into a common distribution of force with angle. Sweeping into the ambient medium, such winds drive bipolar molecular outflows whose properties are insensitive to the distribution of ambient gas…