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

球状星星团是宇宙中最古老的辐射天体之一。它们与宇宙学结构形成时期的第一批星系同时形成。最近，表面亮度低的极度扩展的球状星团变得可以详细观察到。探测到的物体数量迅速增加，它们与不同环境中的各种类型的星系有关，这首次使人们能够对其性质进行深入调查。此外，最近对大规模相互作用星系的观测表明，年轻的大质量星星星团复合体的质量可以达到107−8 M（范围跨越数百pc，包含数十个甚至可能数百个年轻的大质量星星星团）。由于星系-星系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，在星团复合体中形成星星是一种重要的星星形成模式。我们的项目的目的是阐明所观察到的扩展星星团的起源，并回答这些扩展团是否是星星团复合体的残留物的问题。我们建议使用数值模拟系统地覆盖所观察到的参数空间来研究簇复合物的演化。

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.