Star Clusters as Touchstones for Theories of Galactic Evolution — A Few Examples

Scaling relations in dynamical evolution of star clusters

We have carried out a series of small scale collisional N-body calculations of single-mass star clusters to investigate the dependence of the lifetime of star clusters on their initial parameters. Our models move through an external galaxy potential with a logarithmic density profile and they are limited by a cut-off radius. In order to find scaling relations between the lifetime of star cluste...

Star clusters as tracers of galaxy evolution

Star clusters represent the most common ‘mode’ of star formation. They are found in all types of environments, cascading down from galaxy groups and merging pairs through starbursts to normal galaxies and dwarves and even isolated regions in extragalactic space. As they maintain a link to the overall star formation in a system, they can be used as tracers of the star formation history of enviro...

Star Formation and Galactic Evolution

Star clusters as laboratories for stellar and dynamical evolution.

Open and globular star clusters have served as benchmarks for the study of stellar evolution owing to their supposed nature as simple stellar populations of the same age and metallicity. After a brief review of some of the pioneering work that established the importance of imaging stars in these systems, we focus on several recent studies that have challenged our fundamental picture of star clu...

Evolution of Nuclear Star Clusters

Two-body relaxation times of nuclear star clusters are short enough that gravitational encounters should substantially affect their structure in 10 Gyr or less. In nuclear star clusters without massive black holes, dynamical evolution is a competition between core collapse, which causes densities to increase, and heat input from the surrounding galaxy, which causes densities to decrease. The ma...