Related papers: Young Massive Clusters in Non-Interacting Galaxies
In young star clusters, the density can be high enough and the velocity dispersion low enough for stars to collide and merge with a significant probability. This has been suggested as a possible way to build up the high-mass portion of the…
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…
Massive clusters are now seen to form easily in interacting and merging galaxies, making these excellent environments for studying the properties of young clusters. New observations of the Antennae (NGC 4038/39) show that the most luminous…
Using new data from the UVES spectrograph on the ESO Very Large Telescope and archive images from the Hubble Space Telescope, we have measured projected velocity dispersions and structural parameters for two bright young star clusters in…
We present high-dispersion spectra of two extremely massive star clusters in galactic merger remnants. One cluster, W30, is located in the ~500 Myr old merger remnant NGC 7252 and has a velocity dispersion and effective radius of…
The masses of star clusters range over seven decades, from ten up to one hundred million solar masses. Remarkably, clusters with masses in the range 10^4 to 10^6 solar mases show no systematic variation of radius with mass. However, recent…
Recent images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of the interacting disk galaxies NGC 4038/4039 (the Antennae) reveal clusters of many dozens and possibly hundreds of young compact massive star clusters within projected regions…
We present a study of the hierarchical clustering of the young stellar clusters in six local (3--15 Mpc) star-forming galaxies using Hubble Space Telescope broad band WFC3/UVIS UV and optical images from the Treasury Program LEGUS (Legacy…
We report the discovery of an extraordinarily massive young cluster of stars in the Galaxy, having an inferred total initial cluster mass comparable to the most massive young clusters in the Galaxy. Using {\it IRMOS}, {\it 2MASS}, and {\it…
Studies during the last decade have revealed that nearly all Globular Clusters (GCs) host multiple populations (MPs) of stars with a distinctive chemical patterns in light elements. No evidence of such MPs has been found so far in…
We determine the mass function of young star clusters in the merging galaxies the ``Antennae'' (NGC 4038/39) from deep images taken with the WFPC2 on the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This is accomplished by means of…
We present evidence that some of the compact, luminous, young star clusters recently discovered through images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have masses comparable to those of old Galactic globular clusters. The "super star…
The currently available 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 imaging observations, strongly…
Some of the most massive globular clusters of our Milky Way, such as for example omega-Centauri, show a mixture of stellar populations spanning a few Gyr in age and 1.5 dex in metallicities. In contrast, standard formation scenarios predict…
We present a survey of 130 Galactic and extragalactic young massive clusters (YMCs, $10^4 < M/\msun < 10^8$, $10 < t/{\rm Myr} < 1000$) with integrated spectroscopy or resolved stellar photometry (40 presented here and 90 from the…
In order to estimate the masses of the compact, young star clusters in the merging galaxy pair, NGC 4038/4039 (``the Antennae''), we have obtained medium and high resolution spectroscopy using ISAAC on VLT-UT1 and UVES on VLT-UT2 of five…
Central cluster galaxies are the largest and most massive galaxies in the Universe. Although they host very old stellar populations, several studies found the existence of blue cores in some BCGs indicating ongoing star formation. We…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are usually accompanied by lower-mass clusters and unbound stars with a total mass equal to several tens times the mass of the YMC. If this was also true when globular clusters (GCs) formed, then their cosmic…
We report on a study of young star cluster complexes in the spiral galaxy M51. Recent studies have confirmed that star clusters do not form in isolation, but instead tend to form in larger groupings or complexes. We use {\it HST} broad and…
Whilst young massive clusters (YMCs; $M$ $\gtrsim$ 10$^{4}$ M$_{\odot}$, age $\lesssim$ 100 Myr) have been identified in significant numbers, their progenitor gas clouds have eluded detection. Recently, four extreme molecular clouds…