The Formation of Globular Clusters
Guillermo Tenorio Tagle
Globular Clusters are among the most astonishing manifestations of star formation in galaxies. The Milky Way has around 200 of these compact (a few parsecs across) and massive (up to several million stars) orbiting the galaxy. During the last 25 years they have evolved from being one of the most boring Astronomical subjects to become the most astonishing and more brains demanding field in stellar Astrophysics. All of this just because instead of making possible to study them as simple stellar populations, the discovery has been that each globular cluster present several stellar generations. Furthermore, the multiple generations have being found to be self-polluted, with the youngest populations carrying in their atmospheres traces of elements processed by former or older generations. So the main questions now are: how can stars form in places already occupied by a massive and compact stellar generation? How is it possible to reach star formation again despite the mechanical feedback from the older generation? I shall review some of the main ideas that have been postulated as possible solutions and what is that we find wrong with them. I shall also go through the possibility of star formation at very high densities, indicating the limits posed by theory and by the observations, on the power of the strong winds from massive stars. I shall look for models that care in particular about the resultant metallicity, which can only be enhanced by trapping supernovae and finally I will show that our results are in excellent agreement with the observations.
Location: Sporilov, 101