Star cluster complexes in quiescent, active and interacting galaxies

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Pavel Kroupa
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2006 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 34139263

Recent observations have shown that star clusters are often born in groups. In intense star-formation bursts such groups or cluster complexes can reach masses up to 107-8 M⊙ spanning many hundred pc in extend and containing hundreds of young massive star clusters. Such "super-clusters" have been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope to occur in massively interacting galaxies and also in tidal tails such as in the Tadpole galaxy. Since galaxy-galaxy mergers have been much more common during early hierarchical structure formation it can be expected that star-formation in super-clusters may have been a significant star-formation mode during early cosmological epochs and in rich galaxy clusters. Understanding the evolution and final nature of super-clusters would thus constitute an important aspect of galactic astrophysics. Recent results from the observational community have shown that very young cluster complexes follow a scaling relation between mass and radius that is probably derived from the molecular cloud properties. This project aims at performing a theoretical investigation of the evolution of star cluster complexes using recent observational constraints and to do so for a wide range of different physical environments, ranging from rotation-shear dominated regions in relatively quiescent galactic discs to highly compact star-burst environments and in the external environments of tidal tails. Questions to be addressed include whether cluster complexes may be progenitors of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies, faint fuzzies and perhaps some tidal-dwarf galaxies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants