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

球状星团是宇宙中最古老的发光物体之一。它们是在结构形成的宇宙学时期与第一批星系同时形成的。最近，极大的球状星团的低表面亮度变得细节可见。与不同环境中的不同类型的星系相关联的探测到的天体数量迅速增加，这使得首次能够深入研究它们的性质。此外，最近对大规模相互作用星系的观测表明，年轻的大质量星团复合体的质量可以达到107Mpc 8M(横跨数百个PC，包含数十个甚至可能数百个年轻的大质量星团)。由于星系-星系的合并在早期的等级结构形成中更为常见，因此在早期宇宙学时期，星团复合体中的恒星形成被认为是一种重要的恒星形成模式。我们项目的目的是阐明观测到的扩展星团的起源，并回答这些扩展星团是否是星团复合体的残留物的问题。我们建议通过系统地覆盖观测参数空间的数值模拟来研究团簇复合体的演化。

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.