Related papers: Young massive star clusters in M51
Studies during the last decade have revealed that nearly all Globular Clusters (GCs) host multiple populations (MPs) of stars with a distinctive chemical patterns in light elements. No evidence of such MPs has been found so far in…
Massive clusters are more often found in actively star forming galaxies than in quiescent ones, similar to the Milky Way. We have carried out an extensive survey of obscured Milky Way clusters to determine whether our Galaxy is still…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most compact, high-mass stellar systems still forming at the present day. The precursor clouds to such systems are, however, rare due to their large initial gas mass reservoirs and rapid dispersal…
The nearby dwarf starburst galaxy NGC5253 hosts a number of young, massive star clusters, the two youngest of which are centrally concentrated and surrounded by thermal radio emission (the `radio nebula'). To investigate the role of these…
The luminosity function (LF) of young star clusters is often approximated by a power law function. For clusters in a wide range of galactic environments this has resulted in fit indices near -2, but on average slightly steeper. A…
We studied the HST-WFPC2 observations of the inner kpc of the interacting galaxy M51 in six bands from 2550 to 8140 Angstrom. The images show an oval shaped area ("bulge") of 11x16 arcsec or 450x650 pc around the nucleus, dominated by a…
We compare the mass functions of young star clusters (ages $\leq 10$ Myr) and giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in six galaxies that cover a large range in mass, metallicity, and star formation rate (LMC, M83, M51, NGC 3627, the Antennae, and…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most massive star clusters forming in nearby galaxies and are thought to be a young analogue to the globular clusters. Understanding the formation process of YMCs leads to looking into very efficient…
HST WFPC1 observations revealed 738 bright star clusters spread over the inner 12 kpc of the interacting galaxy pair NGC 4038/39. If the young star clusters (YSCs) formed in the global starburst are (proto-) globular or open clusters has…
Recent discoveries have put the picture of stellar clusters being simple stellar populations into question. In particular, the color-magnitude diagrams of intermediate age (1-2 Gyr) massive clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) show…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) have central stellar mass surface densities exceeding $10^{4} M_{\odot} pc^{-2}$. It is currently unknown whether the stars formed at such high (proto)stellar densities. We compile a sample of gas clouds in the…
Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) images are used to identify and study star cluster candidates in the nearby spiral galaxy M101. About 3000 round, slightly-resolved cluster candidates are identified in 10 ACS…
We have introduced a semi-automated quantitative method to estimate the age and reddening of 1072 star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) III survey data. This study brings…
We present low resolution, visible light spectra of 41 star clusters in the spiral galaxy M101, taken with the Gemini/GMOS instrument. We measure Lick indices for each cluster and compare with BaSTI models to estimate their ages and…
In the last decade star clusters have been found in the centers of spiral galaxies across all Hubble types. We here present a spectroscopic study of the exceptionally bright (10^6 - 10^8 Lsun) but compact (Re ~ 5 pc) nuclear star clusters…
We present a photometric study of star clusters in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 based on the UBVI, YJ and H band Hubble Space Telescope images. We find 1105 star clusters with V<23 mag. 1070 of them are located in the disk region, while…
We introduce a method to relate a possible truncation of the star cluster mass function at the high mass end to the shape of the cluster luminosity function (LF). We compare the observed LFs of five galaxies containing young star clusters…
The heavily obscured open cluster Berkeley~51 shows characteristics typical of young massive clusters, even though the few previous studies have suggested older ages. We combine optical ($UBV$) and 2MASS photometry of the cluster field with…
We present images of the recent galaxy merger NGC 3256 obtained with the WFPC2 of the Hubble Space Telescope in B and I filters. We show that there is a large population of more than 1,000 compact, bright blue objects in this galaxy within…
HST is very well tailored for observations of extragalactic star clusters. One obvious reason is HST's high spatial resolution, but equally important is the wavelength range offered by the instruments on board HST, in particular the blue…