Related papers: Galactic Open Clusters
The theory of stellar evolution plays a central role in astrophysics as stellar models are used to infer properties for Galactic and Extragalactic stellar populations as well as exoplanetary systems. However, despite decades of experience,…
Once understood as the paradigm of passively evolving objects, the discovery that massive galaxies experienced an enormous structural evolution in the last ten billion years has opened an active line of research. The most significant…
Young star clusters (YSCs) appear to be a ubiquitous product of star formation in local galaxies, thus, they can be used to study the star formation process at work in their host galaxies. Moreover, YSCs are intrinsically brighter that…
The study of cluster populations as tracer of galaxy evolution is now quite possible with 8 m class telescopes and modern instrumentation. The cluster population can be used as a good tracer of the star forming episodes undergone by the…
The Coma cluster is the ideal place to study galaxy structure as a function of environmental density in order to constrain theories of galaxy formation and evolution. Here we present the spectroscopy of 35 early type Coma galaxies, which…
We use the framework developed as part of the MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) project to assess the utility of several types of observables in jointly measuring the age and 1D stellar model parameters in star clusters. We begin…
Open star clusters are dynamic systems whose evolution is critically influenced by initial conditions such as star formation efficiency and orbital parameters. Understanding their dissolution mechanisms provides insight into stellar…
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;…
Given the importance of clusters to the fields of cosmology and galaxy evolution, it is critical to understand how the cluster detection process affects (biases) ones scientific conclusions derived from a given cluster sample. I review the…
The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of astrophysics. Within the broad context of hierachical structure formation, we have only a crude picture of how galaxies like our own came into existence. A…
Age is one of the most fundamental parameters of stars, yet it is one of the hardest to determine as it requires modelling various aspects of stellar formation and evolution. When we compare the ages derived from isochronal and dynamical…
The universe's large-scale structure forms a vast, interconnected network of filaments, sheets, and voids known as the cosmic web. For decades, astronomers have observed that the orientations of neighboring galaxy clusters within these…
Recent developments relevant to the formation of globular cluster systems in galaxies are discussed, including (1) The age distribution of the oldest Milky Way clusters, (2) Subgroups and possible accretion and merger remnants in the…
Globular Cluster (GC) formation seems to be a widespread mode of star formation in extreme starbursts triggered by strong interactions and mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies. We use our detailed chemically consistent evolutionary…
This is a summary of my lectures during the 2011 IAC Winter School in Puerto de la Cruz. I give an introduction to the field of stellar populations in galaxies, and highlight some new results. Since the title of the Winter School was {\it…
The growth of galaxies through adiabatic accretion of dark matter is one of the main drivers of galaxy evolution. By isolating it from other processes like mergers, we analyse how it affects the evolution of star clusters. Our study…
Masking the horizontal branch and giant stars allows unambiguous measurements of mean age and metallicity in simple old stellar populations from metal and hydrogen line strengths. Billion year resolution is possible in the luminous halos of…
Observations of star-forming galaxies in the distant Universe (z > 2) are starting to confirm the importance of massive stars in shaping galaxy emission and evolution. Inevitably, these distant stellar populations are unresolved, and the…
The long term goal of large-scale chemical tagging is to use stellar elemental abundances as a tracer of dispersed substructures of the Galactic disk. The identification of such lost stellar aggregates and the exploration of their chemical…
Stellar populations, building blocks of galaxies, are direct tracers of the star formation history, the chemical enrichment and the assembly of galaxies in the Universe. They therfore allow us to understand how galaxies formed and evolved.…