SCYON Abstract

Received on September 8 2003

Young star clusters: Clues to galaxy formation and evolution

AuthorsPeter Anders (1), Uta Fritze-v. Alvensleben (1), Richard de Grijs (2)
Affiliation
(1) Universitäts-Sternwarte Göttingen, Geismarlandstrasse 11, 37083 Göttingen, Germany,
(2) Department of Physics & Astronomy, The University of Sheffield, Hicks Building, Hounsfield Road, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK
To appear inScientific Highlights of the IAU, IAU XXV, Sydney, Symposium 217
Contactpanders@uni-sw.gwdg.de
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Abstract

Young clusters are observed to form in a variety of interacting galaxies and violent starbursts, a substantial number resembling the progenitors of the well-studied globular clusters in mass and size. By studying young clusters in merger remnants and peculiar galaxies, we can therefore learn about the violent star formation history of these galaxies. We present a new set of evolutionary synthesis models of our GALEV code specifically developed to include the gaseous emission of presently forming star clusters, and a new tool that allows to determine individual cluster metallicities, ages, extinction values and masses from a comparison of a large grid of model {\bf S}pectral {\bf E}nergy {\bf D}istributions (SEDs) with multi-color observations. First results for the newly-born clusters in NGC 1569 are presented.