Extended star clusters ín quiescent, active, and interacting galaxies as probes for structure formation

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Pavel Kroupa
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 172325168

Globular star clusters are among the oldest radiant objects in the universe. They were formed at the same time as the very first galaxies during the cosmological epoch of structure formation. Recently, extremely extended globular clusters with low surface brightness became observable in detail. The rapidly increasing number of detected objects, which are associated with various types of galaxies in different environments, allows for the first time an in-depth investigation of their nature. In addition, recent observations of massively interacting galaxies have shown that young massive star cluster complexes can reach masses up to 107−8 M( spanning many hundred pc in extent and containing dozens and possibly hundreds of young massive star clusters. Since galaxy-galaxy mergers were much more common during early hierarchical structure formation it is expected that star formation in cluster complexes has been a significant star formation mode during early cosmological epochs. The aim of our project is to shed light on the origin of the observed extended star clusters and to answer the question whether these extended clusters are the remnants of star cluster complexes. We propose to study the evolution of the cluster complexes using numerical simulations covering systematically the observed parameter space.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants