Related papers: The Maximum Mass of Star Clusters
In many different galactic environments the cluster initial mass function (CIMF) is well described by a power-law with index -2. This implies a linear relation between the mass of the most massive cluster (M_max) and the number of clusters.…
Theoretical considerations lead to the expectation that stars should not have masses larger than about m_{max*}=60-120Msun, while the observational evidence has been ambiguous. Only very recently has a physical stellar mass limit near…
Star formation happens in a clustered way which is why the star cluster population of a particular galaxy is closely related to the star formation history of this galaxy. From the probabilistic nature of a mass function follows that the…
We present a thorough literature study of the most-massive star, m_max, in several young star clusters in order to assess whether or not star clusters are populated from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) by random sampling over the…
We measure galaxy stellar mass functions (SMFs) for nine of the most massive galaxy clusters in the local universe ($0.07 < z < 0.11$) using deep and complete spectroscopy from the MAssive Cluster Survey with Hectospec (MACH). We construct…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…
Globular clusters are often assumed to be good tracers of major star formation episodes in their host galaxies. While observations over the past 2 decades have confirmed the presence of young objects with globular cluster-like properties in…
The properties of 939 star clusters in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were determined from ground-based CCD images in UBVR passbands. The areal coverage was extensive, corresponding to 11.0 sq-kpc in the LMC and 8.3 sq-kpc in the…
Observations indicate that young massive star clusters in spiral and dwarf galaxies follow a relation between luminosity of the brightest young cluster and the star-formation rate (SFR) of the host galaxy, in the sense that higher SFRs lead…
Whether or not there exists a physical upper mass limit for star clusters is still unclear. HST/ACS data for the rich cluster population in the interacting galaxy M51 enables us to investigate this in more detail. We investigate whether the…
We analyze the relationship between maximum cluster mass, M_max, and surface densities of total gas (Sigma_gas), molecular gas (Sigma_H2) and star formation rate (Sigma_SFR) in the flocculent galaxy M33, using published gas data and a…
Whether or not the initial star cluster mass function is established through a universal, galactocentric-distance-independent stochastic process, on the scales of individual galaxies, remains an unsolved problem. This debate has recently…
A growing fraction of Simple Stellar Population (SSP) models, in an aim to create more realistic simulations capable of including stochastic variation in their outputs, begin their simulations with a distribution of discrete stars following…
The discovery around the turn of the millenium of a population of very massive (M$_\star$ > 2$\times$10$^6$ M$_\odot$) compact stellar systems (CSS) with physical properties (radius, velocity dispersion, stellar mass etc.) that are…
Clusters of galaxies usually contain rich populations of globular clusters (GCs). We investigate how different star formation histories (SFHs) shape the final mass distribution of star clusters. We assume that every star cluster population…
We introduce a method to relate a possible truncation of the star cluster mass function at the high mass end to the shape of the cluster luminosity function (LF). We compare the observed LFs of five galaxies containing young star clusters…
The presence of a population of a large number ($\sim$400) of almost coeval (100--300 Myr) super star clusters (SSCs) in the disk of M82 offers an opportunity to construct the Cluster Initial Mass Function (CIMF) from the observed…
Several recent studies have shown that the star cluster initial mass function (CIMF) can be well approximated by a power law, with indications for a steepening or truncation at high masses. This contribution considers the evolution of such…
We compare the mass functions of young star clusters (ages $\leq 10$ Myr) and giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in six galaxies that cover a large range in mass, metallicity, and star formation rate (LMC, M83, M51, NGC 3627, the Antennae, and…
The goal of this paper is to test whether the formation rate of star clusters is proportional to the star formation rate (SFR) in galaxies. As a first step, we present the mass functions of compact clusters younger than 10 Myr in seven…