Related papers: Future prospects: Merging data with models
Recent progress in studies of globular clusters has shown that they are not simple stellar populations, being rather made of multiple generations. Evidence stems both from photometry and spectroscopy. A new paradigm is then arising for the…
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest and most luminous stellar systems in the Universe, offering unique insights into galaxy formation and evolution. While the physical processes behind their origin have long remained elusive, major…
We investigate whether the dynamical status of clusters is related to the large-scale structure of the Universe. We find that cluster substructure is strongly correlated with the tendency of clusters to be aligned with their nearest…
Globular clusters in galaxies have a mutual feedback with the environment, which is tuned by their dynamical evolution. This feedback may be the explanation of various features of both the globular cluster system and the host galaxy.…
Globular clusters have long been known to contain large excesses of a variety of objects formed through dynamical processes. The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in our knowledge about these systems.
Stellar clusters are thought to be the simplest stellar systems and the closest observational counterparts to theoretical models for single stellar populations. Progress in our understanding of the atmospheres and evolution of massive stars…
Globular clusters are gravitationally bound stellar systems containing on the order of 100,000 stars. Due to the high stellar densities in the cores of these clusters, close encounters and even physical collisions between stars are…
We present an overview of observational progress in the study of extragalactic globular cluster systems. Globular clusters turn out to be excellent tracers not only for the star-formation histories in galaxies, but also for kinematics at…
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…
Globular clusters (GCs) are old massive star clusters that serve as `fossils' of galaxy formation. The advent of Gaia observatory has enabled detailed kinematics studies of the Galactic GCs and revolutionized our understanding of the…
This review focuses on how galaxies and their globular cluster systems form. I first discuss the now fairly convincing evidence that some globular clusters form in galaxy starbursts/mergers. One way these observations are valuable is they…
We summarize the results of recent theoretical work on the dynamical evolution of globular clusters containing primordial binaries. Even a very small initial binary fraction (e.g., 10%) can play a key role in supporting a cluster against…
We investigate the properties of globular clusters in a galaxy cluster, using the particle tagging method with a semi-analytical approach in a cosmological context. We assume globular clusters form from dark matter halo mergers and their…
We test the hypothesis that globular clusters form in supergiant molecular clouds within high-redshift galaxies. Numerical simulations demonstrate that such large, dense, and cold gas clouds assemble naturally in current hierarchical models…
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…
Globular clusters have long been considered the closest approximation to a physicist's laboratory in astrophysics, and as such a near-ideal laboratory for (low-mass) stellar evolution. However, recent observations have cast a shadow on this…
Understanding the formation of globular clusters will help us to constrain the evolutionary history of galaxies. For mergers on-going today, it appears that the number of newly created proto-globulars varies with the progenitor types and…
This paper presents a review of the characteristics of the multiple stellar populations observed in globular clusters, and of their possible origin. The current theoretical issues and the many open questions are discussed.
An increasing number of both photometric and spectroscopic observations over the last years have shown the existence of distinct sub-populations in many Galactic globular clusters and shattered the paradigm of globulars hosting single,…
We have carried out a set of Monte Carlo simulations to study a number of fundamental aspects of the dynamical evolution of multiple stellar populations in globular clusters with different initial masses, fractions of second generation (2G)…