Conveners
Day 1: Day 1
- Gayandhi De Silva
Description
First Day
Despite the tremendous amount of spectroscopic data available for Galactic globular cluster stars, several fundamental questions regarding their complex formation and evolution remain yet unanswered. In the general framework of multiple population (generation?) scenarios, an extensive comprehension of the stellar source of pollutions (and its relationship with global cluster parameters) is...
The presence of more than one stellar population in globular clusters (GCs) is one of the most intriguing topics in the field of stellar populations. Recently, we have understood that the properties of the different populations are best constrained by precise chemical abundances coupled with the nicknamed "Chromosome Maps" photometric diagram. Reading the "Chromosome Maps" by using the...
To decipher the history of the Galactic bulge is a tricky task because of the complex stellar populations that live there from other components of the Milky Way. In particular, the globular clusters are fundamental pieces to reconstruct that history since they retain the chemodynamical signatures of the early stages of the Galaxy. In this context, we have the globular cluster Palomar 6 (Pal6),...
Black holes in star clusters
Stellar-mass black hole candidates have been reported in several Milky Way globular clusters, based on either accretion signals or radial velocity variations of companion stars. These individual black holes probably represent much more abundant populations of black holes. Charting the demographics of black holes in clusters helps to understand the contribution...
Globular clusters are excellent laboratories to study star formation and the early evolution of galaxies since they contain large samples of equidistant stars with similar ages and chemical abundance patterns. In addition, their high stellar densities make them unique environments for the creation of exotic stars like low-mass X-ray binaries, millisecond pulsars and merging black hole...
In the last 15 years, several spectroscopic investigations seem to indicate an anomalous chemical composition of young Galactic open clusters and star-forming regions, which include (but is not limited to) sub-solar iron (Fe) abundances of these systems in the solar neighborhood, extreme and unexpected barium (Ba) enhancements (with apparently solar values of lanthanum, La), and super-solar...
Open star clusters are unique tracers of the Galaxy evolution and excellent laboratories to study stellar physics. The huge volumes of data produced by current (and future) low- and medium-resolution surveys are expected to push these fields forward. However, at the end of this decade there are going to be gaps in knowledge that can be filled through complementary high resolution data. Here I...
Star clusters and dwarf galaxies are powerful astrophysical laboratories to address several open issues in modern astronomy, ranging from stellar evolution to cosmology. Stellar kinematics is a unique tool in this context. In particular, precise and accurate stellar velocities allow us to measure the mass of a stellar system (including its dark components and their spatial distribution), to...
