The MODEST questions: Challenges and future directions in stellar cluster research

✍ Scribed by Melvyn B. Davies; Pau Amaro-Seoane; Cees Bassa; Jim Dale; Francesca De Angeli; Marc Freitag; Pavel Kroupa; Dougal Mackey; M. Coleman Miller; Simon Portegies Zwart

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 246 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1384-1076
• DOI: 10.1016/j.newast.2006.09.004

✦ Synopsis

We present a review of some of the current major challenges in stellar cluster research, including young clusters, globular clusters, and galactic nuclei. Topics considered include: primordial mass segregation and runaway mergers, expulsion of gas from clusters, the production of stellar exotica seen in some clusters (e.g., blue stragglers and extreme horizontal-branch stars), binary populations within clusters, the black-hole population within stellar clusters, the final parsec problem, stellar dynamics around a massive black hole, and stellar collisions. The Modest Questions posed here are the outcome of discussions which took place at the Modest-6A workshop held in Lund, Sweden, in December, 2005. Modest-6A was organised as part of the activities of the Modest Collaboration (see www.manybody.org for further details).