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An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of tens to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and many more are thought to exist. Each one is loosely bound by mutual gravitational attraction and becomes disrupted by close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the Galactic Center. This can result in a loss of cluster members through internal close encounters and a dispersion into the main body of the galaxy. Open clusters generally survive for a few hundred million years, with the most massive ones surviving for a few billion years. In contrast, the more massive globular clusters of stars exert a stronger gravitational attraction on their members, and can survive for longer. Open clusters have been found only in spiral and irregular galaxies, in which active star formation is occurring.
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In cosmology, Gurzadyan-Savvidy (GS) relaxation is a theory developed by Vahe Gurzadyan and George Savvidy to explain the relaxation over time of the dynamics of N-body gravitating systems such as star clusters and galaxies. Stellar systems observed in the Universe – globular clusters and elliptical galaxies – reveal their relaxed state reflected in the high degree of regularity of some of their physical characteristics such as surface luminosity, velocity dispersion, geometric shapes, etc. The basic mechanism of relaxation of stellar systems has been considered the 2-body encounters, to lead to the observed fine-grained equilibrium. The coarse-grained phase of evolution of gravitating systems is described by violent relaxation developed by Donald Lynden-Bell. The 2-body mechanism of relaxation is known in plasma physics. The difficulties with description of collective effects in N-body gravitating systems arise due to the long-range character of gravitational interaction, as distinct of plasma where due to two different signs of charges the Debye screening takes place. The 2-body relaxation mechanism e.g. for elliptical galaxies predicts around years i.e. time scales exceeding the age of the Universe. The problem of relaxation and evolution of stellar systems and the role of collective effects are studied by various techniques, see. Among the efficient methods of study of N-body gravitating systems are the numerical simulations, particularly, Sverre Aarseth's N-body codes are widely used.
Elena Kirilovsky-Terlevich is an Argentine astrophysicist who works in Mexico as a researcher in the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE). Her research involves galaxy formation and evolution, and the patterns of star formation within galaxies, especially those with active nuclei.
Luigi Rolly Bedin, is an Italian astrophysicist and researcher at the National Institute of Astrophysics of the Padua Astronomical Observatory. His research focuses on stellar populations in open and globular clusters, exoplanets and nearby brown dwarfs. He is the discoverer with his team of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Bedin I. He is a member of the International Astronomical Union.
References
- ↑ Aarseth, A. J. (2012). "Mergers and ejections of black holes in globular clusters". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 422 (1): 841–848. arXiv: 1202.4688 . Bibcode:2012MNRAS.422..841A. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20666.x . S2CID 62826586.
- ↑ Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars
- ↑ "List of Brouwer Award Winners". American Astronomical Society . Retrieved 27 June 2012.
- ↑ "Sverre's Interests". Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. Retrieved 27 June 2012.
- ↑ "International Correspondence Chess Federation International Masters" (PDF). International Correspondence Chess Federation. November 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 March 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2012.
