Related papers: Star Clusters
Galactic globular clusters, which are ancient building blocks of our Galaxy, represent a very interesting family of stellar systems in which some fundamental dynamical processes have taken place on time scales shorter than the age of the…
Dynamical evolution of stellar mass distribution in star clusters is analysed by considering simultaneously the effects of dynamical friction, stochastic heating and the gravitational potential due to mass distribution in the clusters. A…
Blue stragglers are natural phenomena in star clusters. They originate through mass transfer in isolated binaries, as well as through encounters between two or more stars, in a complex interplay between stellar dynamics and stellar…
The ensemble of all star clusters in a galaxy constitutes its star cluster system. In this review, the focus of the discussion is on the ability of star clusters, particularly the systems of old massive globular clusters (GCSs), to mark the…
We probe the evolution of globular clusters that could form in giant molecular clouds within high-redshift galaxies. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the large and dense enough gas clouds assemble naturally in current hierarchical…
Characterization of the binary fractions in star clusters is of fundamental importance for many fields in astrophysics. Observations indicate that the majority of stars are found in binary systems, while most stars with masses greater than…
More than 50 years have elapsed since the first studies of star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds. The wealth of data accumulated since then has not only revealed a large cluster system, but also a diversified one, filling loci in the age,…
Stars in globular clusters are generally believed to have all formed at the same time, early in the Galaxy's history. 'Blue stragglers' are stars massive enough that they should have evolved into white dwarfs long ago. Two possible…
In the present paper we discuss a selection of facts and questions related to observations and evolutionary calculations of massive single stars and massive stars in interacting binaries. We focus on the surface chemical abundances, the…
Nuclear stellar clusters are common in the center of galaxies. We consider the possibility that their progenitors assumed to be globular clusters may have formed elsewhere, migrated to and assembled near their present location. The main…
It is now widely established that globular clusters host robust populations of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes throughout their lifetimes. Within clusters, dynamical processes enabled by stellar densities thousands to millions…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
During the last two decades, the focus of star formation research has shifted from understanding the collapse of a single dense core into a star to studying the formation hundreds to thousands of stars in molecular clouds. In this chapter,…
Most planetary systems -- including our own -- are born within stellar clusters, where interactions with neighboring stars can help shape the system architecture. This paper develops an orbit-averaged formalism to characterize the cluster's…
I discuss the chemical evolution of star clusters, with emphasis on old globular clusters, in relation to their formation histories. Globular clusters clearly formed in a complex fashion, under markedly different conditions from any younger…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of star clusters during their formation, assuming that they are born from a turbulent starless clump of a given mass that is embedded within a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a…
We study the orbital evolution of wide binary stars in the solar neighborhood due to gravitational perturbations from passing stars. We include the effects of the Galactic tidal field and continue to follow the stars after they become…
Recent work on globular cluster systems in dwarf galaxies outside the Local Group is reviewed. Recent large imaging surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope and follow-up spectroscopy with 8-m class telescopes now allow us to compare the…
Star formation is a fundamental process for galactic evolution. One issue over the last several decades has been determining whether star formation is induced by external triggers or is self-regulated in a closed system. The role of an…