Related papers: Conference summary: Mass loss from stellar cluster…
Our understanding of massive star evolution is in flux, due to recent upheavals in our view of mass loss, and observations of a high binary fraction among O-type stars. Mass-loss rates for standard metallicity-dependent winds of hot stars…
A number of recent observational studies of Galactic globular clusters have measured the variation in the slope of a cluster's stellar mass function $\alpha$ with clustercentric distance $r$. In order to gather a deeper understanding of the…
Stars form predominantly in groups usually denoted as clusters or associations. The observed stellar groups display a broad spectrum of masses, sizes and other properties, so it is often assumed that there is no underlying structure in this…
Massive stars have a profound influence on the Universe, but their formation remains poorly understood. We review the current status of observational and theoretical research in this field, describing the various stages of an evolutionary…
The evolution of star clusters is studied using N-body simulations in which the evolution of single stars and binaries are taken self-consistently into account. Initial conditions are chosen to represent relatively young Galactic open…
We report results of a large set of N-body calculations aimed to study the evolution of multi-mass star clusters in external tidal fields. Our clusters start with the same initial mass-functions, but varying particle numbers, orbital types…
The evolution of the global stellar mass function (MF) of star clusters is studied based on a large set of N-body simulations of clusters with a range of initial masses, initial concentrations, in circular or elliptical orbits in different…
We discuss the role of mass loss for the evolution of the most massive stars, highlighting the role of the predicted bi-stability jump that might be relevant for the evolution of rotational velocities during or just after the main sequence.…
We review recent work that investigates the formation of stellar clusters, ranging in scale from globular clusters through open clusters to the small scale aggregates of stars observed in T associations. In all cases, recent advances in…
Clusters are the dense inner regions of a wide-spread hierarchy of young stellar structures. They often reveal a continuation of this hierarchy inside of them, to smaller scales, when they are young, but orbital mixing eventually erases…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
We study the evolution of embedded clusters. The equations of motion of the stars in the cluster are solved by direct N-body integration while taking the effects of stellar evolution and the hydrodynamics of the natal gas content into…
A qualitative study is made of the evolutionary tracks of various dense clusters, with allowance for the evaporation of stars, and for head-on collisions, until relativistic collapse occures or the cluster breaks up.
I review our current knowledge of the mass distribution in clusters, as obtained from the analysis of the projected phase-space distribution of cluster galaxies. I discuss the methods of analysis, their relative advantages and…
The young star clusters we observe today are the building blocks of a new generation of stars and planets in our Galaxy and beyond. Despite their fundamental role we still lack knowledge about the conditions under which star clusters form…
Here we explore the evolution of galaxy ensembles at early times by writing the in situ stellar mass growth of galaxies purely as a stationary stochastic (e.g., quasi-steady state) process. By combining the mathematics of such processes…
We present details of the database from a large Cycle 7 HST project to study the formation and evolution of rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (see Elson et al., this volume). Our data set, which includes NICMOS, WFPC2 and…
The evolution of star clusters is largely affected by the tidal field generated by the host galaxy. It is thus in principle expected that under the assumption of an "universal" initial cluster mass function the properties of the evolved…
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) can be retained in globular clusters (GCs) until the present. Simulations of GC evolution find that the relaxation driven mass-loss rate is elevated if BHs are present, especially near dissolution. We capture…
In this Chapter I review the role that galaxy clusters play as tools to constrain cosmological parameters. I will concentrate mostly on the application of the mass function of galaxy clusters, while other methods, such as that based on the…