Star clusters are essential to understanding stellar formation and age. Our group studies the kinematics and dynamical formation of star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. We investigate the mass formation of the young, massive clusters (YMCs) in the Galactic Center as well as active star-forming clusters.
The Quintuplet Cluster is an open cluster located near the Galactic Center. It is a young (~4 Myr), massive cluster. One of the primary challenges of investigating the cluster is that it is surrounded by dust. This means that high-magnitude (faint) stars are difficult to resolve. Stars at ~5 M⊙ reach a completeness limit of 0.5. |
Stellar Proper Motions in the Orion Nebula Cluster (D. Kim et al. 2019, AJ, 157, 109) The 3D Kinematics of the Orion Nebula Cluster: NIRSPEC-AO Radial Velocities of the Core Population (Theissen et al. 2022, ApJ 926, 141) |
see the Galactic Center page. |
This cluster is a star-forming massive cluster in the Milky Way |