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Star-cluster formation and evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Pavel Kroupa
Pavel Kroupa*
Affiliation:
Argelander Institute for Astronomy, University of Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, D-53347 Bonn, Germany email: pavel@astro.uni-bonn.de
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Abstract

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Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies, and only 10 per cent of all clusters appear to survive to middle- and old-dynamical age. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical time the clusters disrupt. Massive clusters may then feed a hot kinematical stellar component into their host-galaxy's field population thereby thickening galactic disks, a process that theories of galaxy formation and evolution need to accommodate. If the gas-evacuation time-scale depends on cluster mass, then a power-law embedded-cluster mass function may transform within a few dozen Myr to a mass function with a turnover near 105M, thereby possibly explaining this universal empirical feature. Discordant empirical evidence on the mass function of star clusters leads to the insight that the physical processes shaping early cluster evolution remain an issue of cutting-edge research.

Keywords

methods: n-body simulationsstars: luminosity functionmass functionstars: formationbinaries: generalglobular clusters: generalopen clusters and associations: generalGalaxy: structureGalaxy: evolutiongalaxies: star clusters
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 2 , Symposium S237: Triggered Star Formation in a Turbulent ISM , August 2006 , pp. 230 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

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