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The Dynamical Evolution of Young Open Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

Michael Margulis
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, Steward Observatory Tucson, Arizona 85721 U.S.A.
Charles J. Lada
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, Steward Observatory Tucson, Arizona 85721 U.S.A.
David Dearborn
Affiliation:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P. O. Box 808, Livermore, California 94550 U.S.A.

Extract

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Using numerical N-body calculations we have simulated the dynamical evolution of young clusters as they emerge from molecular clouds. Starting with initially virialized systems of stars and gas we follow the evolution of these systems from the time immediately after the stars have formed in a cloud until a time long after all the residual star-forming gas has been dispersed. In the models stellar systems were composed of 50, and in some cases 100, stars and these stars were represented as point masses. The stellar mass function followed a power law with an index of −2.5 and ranged over two decades in mass (Scalo 1978). Gas in the models was represented as an extra term in the gravitational potential function governing stellar motions, and was set to follow a density distribution corresponding to a spherically symmetric Plummer potential function (Plummer 1911). Starting with these initial conditions, stellar motions were then integrated and evolution of each stellar system was followed as gas was dispersed from the vicinity of the stars as a function of time.

Type
Open Clusters
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1985 

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