Dynamical Evolution of Star Clusters - Confrontation of Theory and Observations - International Astronomical Union Symposia 1996 edition

Publisher Marketing: This volume reviews progress in the study of the dynamics of star clusters. It focuses on the progress of both the observation and the theoretical modelling of star clusters. Results from the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope (HST) include the mass function down to the hydrogen burning limits, white dwarf sequence, and central density profiles of post-collapse clusters by star counts. On the theoretical side, this symposium saw the first direct evidence of gravothermal oscillation through N-body simulation, which was made possible by GRAPE-4, the dedicated special-purpose computer for N-body simulation. Numerical techniques to combine stellar evolution and dynamical evolution of the cluster were presented.

Contributor Bio:  Hut, Piet Piet Hut is Professor of Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.