相关论文: What do dynamical cluster masses really tell us ab…
We simulate the dynamics of fractal star clusters, in order to investigate the evolution of substructure in recently formed clusters. The velocity dispersion is found to be the key parameter determining the survival of substructure. In…
How starburst clusters form out of molecular clouds is still an open question. In this article, I highlight some of the key constraints in this regard, that one can get from the dynamical evolutionary properties of dense stellar systems. I…
In the first part of this article, we review observations of the mass and luminosity functions of young and old star cluster systems. We also review some of the physical processes that may determine the characteristic mass of globular…
Quantifying the timescales of star cluster emergence from their natal clouds remains one of the main challenges in understanding the star formation process. These timescales are fundamental measurements of the star formation cycle within…
The aim of this work is to test to what extent the star cluster population of a galaxy can be utilised to constrain or estimate the star formation history, with the Large Magellanic Cloud as our testbed. We follow two methods to extract…
(Abridged) The dynamical ejection of stars from star clusters affects the shape of the stellar mass function (MF) in these clusters, because the escape probability of a star depends on its mass. The objective of this paper is to provide and…
Applying the mean surface density of companions, Sigma(r), to the dynamical evolution of star clusters is an interesting approach to quantifying structural changes in a cluster. It has the advantage that the entire density structure,…
Most stars in our Galaxy form in stellar aggregates, which can become long-lived structures called open clusters (OCs). Along their dynamical evolution, their gradual depletion leave some imprints on their structure. In this work, we…
The dynamical mass of a star cluster can be derived from the virial theorem, using the measured half-mass radius and line-of-sight velocity dispersion of the cluster. However, this dynamical mass may be a significant overestimation of the…
A high number of embedded clusters is found in the Galaxy. Depending on the formation scenario, most of them can evolve to unbounded groups that are dissolved within a few tens of Myr. A systematic study of young stellar clusters showing…
We investigate the mass-to-light ratios of stellar populations as predicted by stellar population synthesis codes and compare those to dynamical/gravitational measurements. In Bell & de Jong (2001) we showed that population synthesis models…
Star clusters are studied widely both as benchmarks for stellar evolution models and in their own right. Cluster age and mass distributions within galaxies are probes of star formation histories, and of cluster formation and disruption…
Open clusters have long been used as tracers of Galactic structure. However, without a selection function to describe the completeness of the cluster census, it is difficult to quantitatively interpret their distribution. We create a method…
Current observational constraints on the dynamical evolution of star clusters are reviewed. Theory and observations now agree nicely on the mass dependency and time scales for disruption of young star clusters in galactic disks, but many…
The knowledge of stellar ages directly impacts the characterization of a planetary system as it puts strong constraints on the moment when the system was born. Unfortunately, the determination of precise stellar ages is a very difficult…
With HST, colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) can be obtained for young star clusters well beyond the Local Group. Such data can help constrain cluster ages and metallicities, and also provide a reference against which intermediate- and high…
We investigate the long-term dynamical evolution of two distinct stellar populations of low-mass stars in globular clusters in order to study whether the energy equipartition process can explain the high number of stars harbouring abundance…
It appears that the dynamical status of clusters and groups of galaxies is related to the large-scale structure of the Universe. A few interesting trends have been established: (1) The Cluster Substructure - Alignment Connection, by which…
The formation of massive stellar clusters is intricately linked to star formation on local and global scales. All actively star forming galaxies are forming clusters, and the local initial conditions likely determine whether bound massive…
Traditional studies of stellar clusters in external galaxies use surface photometry and therefore focus on systems that are still bright and compact enough to be separated from the stellar background. Consequently, the latter stages of…