The interplay between stellar evolution and stellar dynamics in stellar clusters

这项研究计划的最终目标是详细描述星团及其组成恒星种群从出生到死亡的演化过程。球状星团和疏散星团在历史上一直是研究孤立恒星演化和研究自引力系统行为的非常有启发性的环境。然而，现在很明显，这两种方法既不能独立地描述星系团的整体动力学演化，也不能独立地描述所有组成恒星群体的性质。单个星系团恒星之间的近距离相遇和碰撞对星系团的出现和演化有重大影响。越来越多的证据表明，星团可能不是我们所认为的简单的恒星群体，原始双星和非常早期的恒星形成起着重要作用。我的贡献集中在将多种理论工具和技术结合在一起，以解决集群人口和进化中的悬而未决的难题。我和我的团队目前正专注于三个具体的项目。我们正在与各种环境的观察者合作，提供动态产生的恒星群的理论模型，包括疏散星团、球状星团和矮小球状星系。我们正在使用流体力学和恒星演化建模技术来研究特定的恒星碰撞产物。我们正在研究一种可能性，即球状星团中的早期恒星可能已经被动态修改，以产生观测到的恒星组成的变化。

The ultimate goal of this research program is to describe, in detail, the evolution of stellar clusters and their constituent stellar populations from birth to death. Globular and open clusters have historically been very enlightening environments in which to study the evolution of isolated stars, and to study the behaviour of self-gravitating systems. However, it is now clear that these two approaches cannot independently describe both the overall dynamical evolution of the cluster, nor the properties of all the constituent stellar populations. Close encounters and collisions between individual clusters stars have a significant impact on the appearance and evolution of the cluster. And evidence is emerging that clusters may not be the simple stellar populations we had thought, with primordial binaries and very early star formation playing an important role. My contributions centre on bringing multiple theoretical tools and techniques together to address the outstanding puzzles in cluster populations and evolution. My group and I are currently concentrating on three specific projects. We are providing theoretical models of dynamically-produced stellar populations in collaboration with observers of a variety of environments, including open clusters, globular clusters, and dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We are using hydrodynamical and stellar evolution modelling techniques to study specific stellar collision products. And we are looking at the possibility that an early generation of stars in globular clusters could have been dynamically modified to produce the observed variations in stellar compositions.