Formation and evolution of globular clusters in cosmological simulations

Abstract

In a series of three papers, we introduced a novel cluster formation model that describes the formation, growth, and disruption of star clusters in high-resolution cosmological simulations. We tested this model on a Milky Way-sized galaxy and found that various properties of young massive clusters, such as the mass function and formation efficiency, are consistent with observations in the local universe. Interestingly, most massive clusters -- globular cluster candidates -- are preferentially formed during major merger events. We follow the dynamical evolution of clusters in the galactic tidal field. Due to tidal disruption, the cluster mass function evolves from initial power law to a peaked shape. The surviving clusters at $z=0$ show a broad range of metallicity [Fe/H] from -3 to -0.5. A robust prediction of the model is the age--metallicity relation, in which metal-rich clusters are systematically younger than metal-poor clusters by up to 3 Gyr.

6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 351 Star Clusters: From the Milky Way to the Early Universe, 2019

References in corpus (5)

• Probing the role of the galactic environment in the formation of stellar clusters; using M83 as a test bench
• Star cluster formation in cosmological simulations. I. Properties of young clusters
• Modeling the Formation of Globular Cluster Systems in the Virgo Cluster
• Disruption of giant molecular clouds and formation of bound star clusters under the influence of momentum stellar feedback
• The formation of low metallicity globular clusters in dwarf galaxy mergers

Cited by in corpus (2)

• The role of collision speed, cloud density, and turbulence in the formation of young massive clusters via cloud-cloud collisions
• J-PLUS: Detecting and studying extragalactic globular clusters -- the case of NGC 1023