2025-05-27 –, Main Conference Room
Massive star clusters are fundamentally important sources of stellar feedback and chemical enrichment in galaxies. They regulate star formation, drive galactic outflows and may even be significant sources of ionizing radiation during the epoch of cosmic reionization. In the GRIFFIN project (Galaxy Realizations Including Feedback From INdividual massive stars) we examine the formation and evolution of resolved star clusters up to the mass range of globular clusters using high-resolution (sub-parsec, star-by-star) hydrodynamical simulations of low-metallicity dwarf galaxies. The simulations account for the radiation, stellar winds and supernovae of individually realized stars. We have shown that massive star clusters form hierarchically and rapidly over time-scales of less than 10 Myr. During formation, the clusters can be self-enriched in light-element-rich stellar winds of very massive stars, while supernova ejecta escape in metal-enriched outflows. Recently, we supplemented the methodology with a regularized integrator to accurately solve the stellar gravitational dynamics on small spatial scales. This was shown to be critically important for the modelling of more realistic star cluster life cycles from formation until disruption in the tidal field of the host galaxy. In this talk, I will discuss some of the key results of GRIFFIN and future avenues toward unravelling the cosmic origin and role of globular clusters.
