Related papers: Mass Determinations of Star Clusters
Estimating ages for stars is difficult at best, but Galactic problems have their own requirements that go beyond those for other areas of astrophysics. As in other areas, asteroseismology is helping, and in this review I discuss some of the…
In the last decade we have come to realize that the traditional classification of stellar clusters into open and globular clusters cannot be easily extended beyond the realm of the Milky Way, and that even for our Galaxy it is not fully…
Star clusters are ideal tracers of star formation activity in systems outside the volume that can be studied using individual, resolved stars. These unresolved clusters span orders of magnitude in brightness and mass, and their formation is…
Accurate and precise stellar ages are best determined for stars which are strongly observationally constrained, that is which are intrinsically oscillating. We review here the seismic diagnostics which are sensitive to stellar ages and…
Young open clusters are our laboratories for studying high-mass star formation and evolution. Unfortunately, the information that they provide is difficult to interpret, and sometimes contradictory. In this contribution, I present a few…
The properties of old globular cluster systems (GCSs) in galaxy halos offer unique insight into the physical processes that conspire to form any generic star cluster, at any epoch. Presented here is a summary of the information obtained…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…
The age of an individual star cannot be measured, only estimated through mostly model-dependent or empirical methods, and no single method works well for a broad range of stellar types or for a full range in age. This review presents a…
Although fundamental for astrophysics, the processes that produce massive stars are not well understood. Large distances, high extinction, and short timescales of critical evolutionary phases make observations of these processes…
Most stars do not form in isolation but as part of a cluster comprising anywhere between a few dozen to several million stars with stellar densities ranging from 0.01 to several 10$^5$ \Msun pc$^{-3}$. The majority of these clusters…
We have made a new compilation of observations of maximum stellar mass versus cluster membership number from the literature, which we analyse for consistency with the predictions of a simple random drawing hypothesis for stellar mass…
Theoretical considerations lead to the expectation that stars should not have masses larger than about m_{max*}=60-120Msun, while the observational evidence has been ambiguous. Only very recently has a physical stellar mass limit near…
Mass segregation in a star cluster is studied in an analytical manner. We consider a two-component cluster, which consists of two types of stars with different masses. Plummer's model is used for the initial condition. We trace the overall…
Populations of young star clusters show significant differences even among "normal" disk galaxies. In this contribution I discuss how properties of young cluster systems are related to those of their host galaxies, based on a recent study…
I review the status of massive star formation theories: accretion from collapsing, massive, turbulent cores; competitive accretion; and stellar collisions. I conclude the observational and theoretical evidence favors the first of these…
In this contribution I will discuss fundamental stellar parameters as determined from young star clusters; specifically those with ages less than or approximately equal to that of the Pleiades. I will focus primarily on the use of stellar…
We have determined the amount of stellar mass segregation in over 50 globular clusters and ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates based on deep HST and ground-based photometry. We find that the amount of mass segregation in globular clusters…
The fundamental properties of stellar clusters, such as the age or the total initial mass in stars, are often inferred from population synthesis models. The predicted properties are then used to constrain the physical mechanisms involved in…
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…
The formation of massive stellar clusters is intricately linked to star formation on local and global scales. All actively star forming galaxies are forming clusters, and the local initial conditions likely determine whether bound massive…