The dynamical evolution of young clusters and galactic implications
Abstract
Description
Star clusters are observed to form in a highly compact state and with low star-formation efficiencies. If the residual gas is expelled on a dynamical time the clusters disrupt thereby (i) feeding a hot kinematical stellar component into their host-galaxy's field population, and (ii) if the gas-evacuation time-scale depends on cluster mass, then a power-law embedded-cluster mass function transforms within ten to a few dozen Myr to a mass function with a turnover near 10^5 M_sun, thereby possibly explaining this universal empirical feature.
4 pages, to appear in the proceedings of "Globular Clusters: Guides to Galaxies", Concepcion, Chile, March 6th-10th, 2006, eds Tom Richtler et al. (Springer)
4 pages, to appear in the proceedings of "Globular Clusters: Guides to Galaxies", Concepcion, Chile, March 6th-10th, 2006, eds Tom Richtler et al. (Springer)