Globular Clusters: Formation, Evolution and the Role of Compact ObjectsCoordinators: Lars Bildsten, Adrienne Cool, Fred Rasio, Steve ZepfJanuary 27, 2003 - January 31, 2003 |
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Our understanding of the formation and evolution of globular clusters(GCs) is rapidly improving. Much recent progress on GC formation has come from new observations of extragalactic GCs and, in particular, from HST observations of cluster formation in starburst galaxies and in interacting galaxies. Significant advances have also been realized in numerical simulations of structure formation in the high-redshift universe, which are now beginning to probe the relevant scales. In spite of this tremendous recent progress, important questions remain unresolved. These include whether the absence of dark matter halos around GCs can be accommodated in any early formation model, why GCs do not have a mass-radius relation when the clouds from which they form almost certainly do, and how well our current models of their dynamical evolution match the available data. The dense stellar environment in GCs triggers the formation of many exotic and physically interesting systems(e.g., massive black holes, accreting compact objects, millisecond radio pulsars, and cataclysmic variables). The presence of heavy stellar remnants can dramatically accelerate the dynamical evolution toward catastrophic core collapse. Dynamical interactions between compact objects and normal stars lead to very large formation rates for some of the most interesting interacting binary systems observed in the Galaxy. Recent deep observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra Observatory are finding such systems in large numbers, including faint cataclysmic variables, cooling white dwarfs, counterparts to many millisecond radio pulsars, and quiescent X-ray binaries. The X-ray binary populations observed recently by Chandra in galaxies outside our Local Group will provide us with important new constraints on the formation and evolution of X-ray binaries and on dynamical processes taking place in GCs. The key here is that optical identifications of many Chandra X-ray sources in nearby galaxies are becoming available. A major advantage of these new studies is that they go beyond the small numbers of sources observed in the Milky Way, and that they allow us for the first time to observe GCs with a much wider range of dynamical histories. Current Schedule of Speakers and Titles: ------------------------------------------- Monday Morning: Globular Cluster Formation ------------------------------------------- C. Clarke: Overview on GC formation in the early universe. F. Schweizer: GC formation in mergers, observation B. Elmegreen: GC formation in mergers, theory Roundtable on Cluster Formation(C. Clarke organizer) T. Abel, V. Bromm, P. Natarajan ----------------------------------------- Monday Afternoon: Basic Cluster Dynamics ----------------------------------------- I. King: Overview of Galactic GC observations/Structure. S. McMillan: Theory Overview of GC Evolution H. Baumgardt : Overview of N Body Simulations P. Hut: MODEST: modeling stellar evolution and(hydro)dynamics J. Hurley : "whole shebang" N-body simulations and merging WD binaries ----------------------------------------------------- Tuesday Morning: IMF, main sequence, blue stragglers ----------------------------------------------------- G. de Marchi: The Faint end of the stellar luminosity function J. Anderson : Using proper motions to constrain cluster dynamics R. Guhathakurta : A Deep, High-Resolution Study of the Core of 47 Tucanae M. Shara: HST observations of blue stragglers A. Sills: Stellar Collisions: Blue Stragglers and Other Anomalies ---------------------------------------- Tuesday afternoon: White dwarfs and CVs ---------------------------------------- H. Richer: Observa |
