The formation of super-star clusters in disk and dwarf galaxies

Carsten Weidner, Ian A. Bonnell, Hans Zinnecker

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Super-star clusters are probably the largest star-forming entities in our local Universe, containing hundreds of thousands to millions of young stars usually within less than a few parsecs. While no such systems are known in the Milky Way (MM), they are found especially in pairs of interacting galaxies but also in some dwarf galaxies like R 136 in the Large Magelanic Cloud (LMC). With the use of SPH calculations we show that a natural explanation for this phenomenon is the presence of shear in normal spiral galaxies which facilitates the formation of low-density loose OB associations from giant molecular clouds (GMC) instead of dense super-star clusters. In contrast, in interacting galaxies and in dwarf galaxies, regions can collapse without having a. large-scale sense of rotation. This lack of rotational support allows the giant molecular clouds to concentrate into a single, dense and gravitationally, bound system.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCOMPUTATIONAL STAR FORMATION
EditorsJ Alves, BG Elmegreen, JM Girart, V Trimble
Place of PublicationCAMBRIDGE
PublisherCambridge University Press
Pages385-388
Number of pages4
ISBN (Print)978-0-52176-643-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Event270th Symposium of the International-Astronomical-Union on Computational Star Formation - Barcelona
Duration: 31 May 20104 Jun 2010

Conference

Conference270th Symposium of the International-Astronomical-Union on Computational Star Formation
CityBarcelona
Period31/05/104/06/10

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