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Globular cluster systems (GCSs) are vital tools for investigating the violent star formation histories of their host galaxies. This violence could e.g. have been triggered by galaxy interactions or mergers. The basic observational…
I review the Globular Cluster Luminosity Function (GCLF) with emphasis on recent observational data and theoretical progress. As is well known, the turn-over magnitude (TOM) is a good distance indicator for early-type galaxies within the…
(abridged) The old Star Cluster (SC) systems surrounding any sofar investigated galaxy represent a powerful tool for the understanding of the cosmological evolution of their host galaxies. Phases of enhanced cluster formation can be…
We analyse the cluster luminosity functions (CLFs) of the youngest star clusters in three galaxies exhibiting prominent circumnuclear starburst rings. We focus specifically on NGC 1512 and NGC 6951, for which we have access to H$\alpha$…
We present a new evolutionary synthesis (ES) tool specifically developed for the analysis of multi-color data of young star clusters (YSCs) in interacting galaxies. Our ESO/ST-ECF ASTROVIRTEL project provides an unprecedented database of…
Globular star clusters are extremely important astrophysical objects since (1) they are prime laboratories for testing stellar evolution; (2) they are ``fossils'' from the epoch of galaxy formation, and thus important cosmological tools;…
The observational properties of globular cluster systems (GCSs) are vital tools to investigate the violent star formation histories of their host galaxies. This violence is thought to have been triggered by galaxy interactions or mergers.…
Star clusters in 6 nearby spiral galaxies are examined using archive images from HST/WFPC2. The galaxies have previously been studied from the ground and some of them are known to possess rich populations of "young massive clusters" (YMCs).…
We constructed the composite Luminosity Function (LF) of cluster galaxies in the g,r and i bands from the photometry of a mixed (Abell and X-ray selected) sample of the cores of 65 clusters, ranging in redshift from 0.05 to 0.25. The…
Deep X-ray surveys have provided a comprehensive and largely unbiased view of active galactic nuclei (AGN) evolution stretching back to $z \sim 5$. However, it has been challenging to use the survey results to connect this evolution to the…
The composite galaxy luminosity function (hereafter LF) of 39 Abell clusters of galaxies is derived by computing the statistical excess of galaxy counts in the cluster direction with respect to control fields. Due to the wide field coverage…
Context. Clusters of galaxies are important for cosmology and astrophysics. They may be discovered through either the summed optical/IR radiation originating from their member galaxies or via X-ray emission originating from the hot…
Far-ultraviolet (FUV) observations with the Hubble Space Telescope are an excellent way to find and study the hot, blue stellar populations in the cores of globular clusters. These populations include dynamically-formed blue stragglers and…
We study the luminosity function (LF) of the star clusters in M51. Comparing the observed LF with the LF resulting from artificial cluster populations suggests that there exists an upper mass limit for clusters and that this limit and/or…
We discuss, from a statistical point of view, some leading issues that deal with the study of stellar populations in fully or partially unresolved aggregates, like globular clusters and distant galaxies. A confident assessment of the…
The numerous and massive young star clusters in blue compact galaxies (BCGs) are used to investigate the properties of their hosts. We test whether BCGs follow claimed relations between cluster populations and their hosts, such as the the…
Star formation plays a central role in the evolution of galaxies and of the Universe as a whole. Studies of star-forming regions in the local universe have shown that star formation typically occurs in a clustered fashion. Building a…
The Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) is a 524-orbit multi-cycle treasury program to use the gravitational lensing properties of 25 galaxy clusters to accurately constrain their mass distributions. The survey,…
The widely varying dwarf galaxy counts in different environments provide a strong challenge to standard hierarchical clustering models. The luminosity function is not universal, but seems to be strongly dependent upon environment. In this…
The color-magnitude relation (CMR) of early-type galaxies in clusters provides a powerful tool for finding clusters and determining photometric redshifts for clusters using two-filter imaging data. We demonstrate the high accuracy of…