Related papers: Formation Scenarios for Globular Clusters and Thei…
Some factors connecting the evolutionary histories of galaxies with the characteristics of their cluster systems are reviewed. Unanswered questions include: How is one to understand the observation that some globular cluster systems have…
Variations in the number of globular clusters per unit galaxy luminosity, which is the specific frequency, and the mass of globular clusters per unit total available mass, are reviewed. Correlations with galaxy luminosity and morphology,…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
In the present-day universe, it appears that most, and perhaps all, massive stars are born in star clusters. It also appears that all star clusters contain stars drawn from an approximately universal initial mass function, so that almost…
The high-density environment of galaxy clusters is ripe for collisional encounters of galaxies. While the large velocity dispersion of clusters was originally thought to preclude slow encounters, the infall of smaller groups into the…
There is now strong evidence that the metal-rich globular clusters (GC) near the center of our Galaxy are associated with the Galactic bulge rather than the disk as previously thought. Here we extend the concept of bulge GCs to the GC…
Galactic globular clusters, which are ancient building blocks of our Galaxy, represent a very interesting family of stellar systems in which some fundamental dynamical processes have taken place on time scales shorter than the age of the…
A sample of hundreds of simulated galaxy clusters is used to study the statistical properties of galaxy cluster formation. Individual assembly histories are discussed, the degree of virialization is demonstrated and various commonly used…
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…
Rich clusters of galaxies, the largest virialized systems known, provide a powerful tool for the study of cosmology. Some of the fundamental questions that can be addressed with clusters of galaxies include: how did galaxies and large-scale…
In this contribution I present a review of star formation in clusters. I begin by discussing the various definitions of what constitutes a star cluster, and then compare the outcome of star formation (IMF, multiplicity, mass segregation and…
In this review, we describe our current understanding of cluster formation: from the general picture of collapse from initial density fluctuations in an expanding Universe to detailed simulations of cluster formation including the effects…
Rich clusters of galaxies are the most massive virialized systems known. Even though they contain only a small fraction of all galaxies, rich clusters provide a powerful tool for the study of galaxy formation, dark matter, large-scale…
It is suggested that there have been at least two physically distinct epochs of massive cluster formation. The first generation of globular clusters may have formed as halo gas was compressed by shocks driven inward by ionization fronts…
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…
In the most prominent current scenario of galaxy formation, galaxies form hierarchically through the merger of smaller systems. Such mergers could leave behind dynamical signatures which may linger long after the event. In particular, the…
The ensemble of all star clusters in a galaxy constitutes its star cluster system. In this review, the focus of the discussion is on the ability of star clusters, particularly the systems of old massive globular clusters (GCSs), to mark the…
Current empirical evidence on the star-formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters (mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope observations) strongly suggests that star CLUSTER…
Observed metallicities of globular clusters reflect physical conditions in the interstellar medium of their high-redshift host galaxies. Globular cluster systems in most large galaxies display bimodal color and metallicity distributions,…
Observations have revealed that most stars are born in clusters. These systems, containing from tens to thousands of stars and typically significant mass in gas in the youngest systems, evolve due to a combination of stellar and star-gas…