Clustered star formation is the dominant mode of star formation across cosmic time. Moreover, it plays a key role in many fundamental areas of astrophysics: from the early interplay between stellar and gas dynamics to the formation of gravitational wave sources and exotica, from the dynamical properties of young star clusters to galaxy assembly and evolution. Yet, the underlying physical...
An intriguing phenomenon in globular clusters is the presence of multiple stellar populations with different light element compositions. The origin of this phenomenon is still unclear, but a key piece of information to solve this enigma resides in the structural and kinematic differences of the stellar populations. Globular clusters are, in general, very old stellar populations, but...
Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) are known to have some degree of chemical complexity, indicating that they do not consist of a "single" stellar population. Instead, some stars have an atmospheric composition showing evidence of material processed by nuclear reactions. Recently, the issue has also been raised about how "mono-metallic" GGCs are. Intrinsic Fe dispersions among RGB stars of GGCs...
Dense stellar systems, such as globular clusters and nuclear star clusters, represent natural laboratories for exploring the intricate interplay between gravitational interactions, stellar dynamics, and the formation of exotic objects like intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). Recent discoveries of massive black holes above 10^7 Msol in stripped nuclei within the Virgo and Fornax clusters...
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the most ancient objects in the local Universe, acting as tracers of galaxy formation across both space and time. With the recent JWST discovery of nitrogen-rich star formation in a redshift 11 galaxy, and the discovery that over 50% of the in-situ stars in the Milky Way (MW) likely formed in clusters, understanding the role of GCs in the context of galaxy...
Binary systems are important constituents of massive star clusters. They have been invoked to play an important role in the origin of phenomena observed in these environments, such as the extended main-sequence turn-offs, and to lead to the formation of exotic objects (blue straggler stars, low-mass X-ray binaries, Be stars etc).
A detailed characterization of the orbital properties of...
Empirical constraints on the internal dynamics of open clusters are important for understanding their evolution and evaporation. High precision astrometry from Gaia DR3 are thus useful to observe aspects of the cluster dynamics. This work aims to identify dynamically peculiar clusters such as spinning and expanding clusters. We also quantify the spin frequency and expansion rate and compare...
N-Body simulations are adopted to understand the rotation in star clusters via the code N-Body6++GPU. The morphology of open clusters are significantly changed due to bulk rotation, especially at the early a few dozen million years. Binary systems also plays an important role in the dynamical evolution of rotating clusters. By comparing simulations to observation, we provide an example of a...
One of the most important quantities needed for understanding a stellar cluster’s (SC’s) formation and evolution is it’s stellar mass and mass function (MF). However, the measurements of these quantities are complicated by the possible presence of unresolved binaries. This contribution explores the influence of unresolved binaries on the measured SC mass and MF. It also investigates the impact...
A number of different hypotheses about the origin of Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the galactic centres was proposed. One formation channel that we investigate in our project is the gravitational runaway scenario, that suggests an SMBH seed to form by runaway collisions in dense star systems like globular clusters (GCs). We focused on two promising candidates that can host such a massive...
Although great progress has been made the last years on the shape of
the Stellar Mass Function and the dynamics of stellar clusters in more
evolved clusters, less is known on the earliest stages of star
formation. Here we present recent JWST observations in conjunction
with previous HST and VLT observations of a still forming star
cluster, identified by a large molecular infall. The...
