Related papers: Star and cluster formation in extreme environments
We study the formation of globular clusters (GCs) in a Milky Way-size galaxy using a high-resolution cosmological simulation. The clusters in our model form in the dense cores of supergiant molecular clouds in the gaseous disks of…
The surface brightness profiles of globular clusters are conventionally described with the well-known King profile. However, observations of young massive clusters (YMCs) in the local Universe suggest that they are better fit by simple…
The observed discrete multiple stellar populations and internal abundance spreads in r- and s-process elements within globular clusters (GCs) have been suggested to be explained self-consistently by discrete star formation events over a…
The study of young star cluster (YSC) systems, preferentially in starburst and merging galaxies, has seen great interest in the recent past, as it provides important input to models of star formation. However, even some basic properties…
I briefly review some measures of star formation rates in galaxies and discuss their respective uncertainties before outlining the range of star formation rates encountered in starbursts from isolated dwarf through massive gas-rich…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
Nuclear star clusters are among the densest stellar systems known and are common in both early- and late-type galaxies. They exhibit scaling relations with their host galaxy which may be related to those of supermassive black holes. These…
We study the formation and early evolution of star clusters that have a wide range of masses and background cloud mass surface densities, $\Sigma_{\rm cloud}$, which help set the initial sizes, densities, and velocity dispersions of the…
Using our recently improved understanding of star cluster physics, we are now within reach of answering a number of fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Star cluster physics has immediate bearing on questions ranging from the…
The study of the internal structure of star clusters provides important clues concerning their formation mechanism and dynamical evolution. There are both observational and numerical evidences indicating that open clusters evolve from an…
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…
We argue that rich star clusters take at least several local dynamical times to form, and so are quasi-equilibrium structures during their assembly. Observations supporting this conclusion include morphologies of star-forming clumps,…
The existence of older stars within a young star cluster can be interpreted to imply that star formation occurs on time scales longer than a free-fall time of a pre-cluster cloud core. Here the idea is explored that these older stars are…
The clustered nature of star formation should produce a high degree of structure in the combined phase and chemical space in the Galactic disk. To date, observed structure of this kind has been mostly limited to bound clusters and moving…
The most massive galaxies in the present-day Universe are found to lie in the centres of rich clusters. They have old, coeval stellar populations suggesting that the bulk of their stars must have formed at early epochs in spectacular…
Molecular clouds at very high latitudes ($b > 60^o$) away from the Galactic plane are considered rare and not conventional sites of star formation. Contrary to this, the recent discovery of high latitude embedded Clusters can possibly…
Globular clusters are compact, gravitationally bound systems of up to a million stars. The GCs in the Milky Way contain some of the oldest stars known, and provide important clues to the early formation and continuing evolution of our…
Most stars form in dense star clusters deeply embedded in residual gas. These objects must therefore be seen as the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. With this contribution some physical processes that act in the very early and also…
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…
Stars mostly form in groups consisting of a few dozen to several ten thousand members. For 30 years, theoretical models provide a basic concept of how such star clusters form and develop: they originate from the gas and dust of collapsing…