AbstractThe Tarantula Survey is an ambitious ESO Large Programme that has obtained multi-epoch spectroscopy of over 1000 massive stars in the 30 Doradus region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Here, we introduce the scientific motivations of the survey and give an overview of the observational sample. Ultimately, quantitative analysis of every star, paying particular attention to the effects of rotational mixing and binarity, will be used to address fundamental questions in both stellar and cluster evolution.
AbstractThe fraction of field OB stars that originate from clusters can help probe the dynamical evolution of clusters. Field stars represent a significant fraction (20-30%) of the OB population in galaxies, and estimates for the fraction of field OB stars that are runaways range from the classical value of <10% (Blaauw 1961) to contemporary results suggesting >90% (de Wit et al. 2005). We obtained Magellan IMACS observations on the kinematics of field OB stars in the SMC to examine the line-of-sight velocities of this population. Using these observations, we will estimate the fraction of runaways to serve as a probe of cluster evolution.
Real-Time Observation of Protein Dense Liquid Cluster Evolution during Nucleation in Protein Crystallization