Pietro Facchini

Pietro Facchini  (Italy)

pietro.facchini @ stud.uni-heidelberg.de

Isolated Star Formation in Nearby Galaxies

Whether or not massive stars form only in clusters and associations or whether they can also form in isolation in the field is a long-standing question, which so far has mostly been empirically studied in the Magellanic Clouds and in the Milky Way. Many of the possible isolated stars were found to be likely runaways from their parental cluster or association, in some other cases a small clustering of lower-mass stars was discovered, making these massive stars as members of very sparse clusters.
Now we want to take these studies one step further and investigate the possibily of isolated star formation beyond the Local Group. A large number of nearby star-forming spiral and irregular galaxies was observed in optical and far ultraviolet colors with the Hubble Space Telescope in the framework of the "Galaxy UV Legaly Project" (GULP; PI: Dr. Elena Sabbi). I will use these data in order to search for isolated OB stars in the field populations of the target galaxies and then I will explore wether these stars could have formed in the young star clusters of the galaxies and have subsequently been ejected, or whether they do not belong to any cluster, rendering these stars candidates for isolated star formation. 


Supervisor:    Eva Grebel  (ARI)