Related papers: The maximum stellar mass, star-cluster formation a…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
The stellar initial mass function is of great significance for the study of star formation and galactic structure. Observations indicate that the IMF follows a power-law form. This work derived that when the expected number of stars formed…
Low-mass stars (M<0.4Msun) are thought to comprise the bulk of the stellar mass of galaxies but they constitute only of order a percent of the bolometric luminosity of an old stellar population. Directly estimating the number of low-mass…
Clusters of galaxies allow a direct estimate of the metallicity and metal production yield on the largest scale so far. The ratio of the total iron mass in the ICM to the total optical luminosity of the cluster (the iron…
Competitive accretion, a process to explain the origin of the IMF, occurs when stars in a common gravitational potential accrete from a distributed gaseous component. We show that concerns recently raised on the efficiency of competitive…
Most star complexes are in fact complexes of stars, clusters and gas clouds; term "star complexes" was introduced as general one disregarding the preferential content of a complex. Generally the high rate of star formation in a complex is…
The stellar mass distribution in star-forming regions, stellar clusters and associations, the Initial Mass Function (IMF), appears to be invariant across different star-forming environments, and is consistent with the IMF observed in the…
The interplay between the ISM and the massive stars formed in clusters and, more generally, in recent events of star formation is reviewed via the global effects each has on the other. The pre-existing environment affects the properties of…
We study the large-scale triggering of star formation in galaxies. We find that the largest mass-scale not stabilized by rotation, a well defined quantity in a rotating system and with clear dynamical meaning, strongly correlates with the…
Using the guidelines on SN element production provided by XMM-Newton, we summarize the results of ASCA observations on the element abundance in groups and clusters of galaxies. We show that while the metal production in groups could be…
The metal content of clusters of galaxies and its relation to their stellar content is revisited making use of a cluster sample for which all four basic parameters are homogeneously measured within consistent radii, namely core-excised…
We consider the hypothesis that the formation of elliptical galaxies includes a phase in which star formation is mostly restricted to massive stars, with the bias towards high mass stars increasing with elliptical galaxy mass. The mass…
Recent observations of globular clusters (GCs) provide evidence that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) may not be universal, suggesting specifically that the IMF grows increasingly top-heavy with decreasing metallicity and increasing…
We present the results of a recent near-infrared survey of the fields surrounding a large sample of intermediate-mass pre-main-sequence (Herbig Ae/Be) stars. While late-type Be and Ae stars are never associated with conspicuous groups of…
We show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star forming clumps, such as those observed…
We present composite 3.6 and 4.5 micron luminosity functions for cluster galaxies measured from the Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey (SDWFS) for 0.3<z<2. We compare the evolution of m* for these luminosity functions to models for passively…
A model of core-clump accretion with equally likely stopping describes star formation in the dense parts of clusters, where models of isolated collapsing cores may not apply. Each core accretes at a constant rate onto its protostar, while…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
Several observational and theoretical studies suggest that the initial mass function (IMF) slope for massive stars in globular clusters (GCs) depends on the initial cloud density and metallicity, such that the IMF becomes increasingly…
Many recent works have attempted to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) inside massive clusters by comparing their dynamical mass estimates to the measured light. These studies have come to different conclusions, with some…