What is the relationship between the properties of star clusters and the environments from which they form?
Coordinated by Kelsey Johnson and Ian Bonnell We know that most stars form in stellar clusters and that often clusters themselves can be in groups. The question is why do stars form in groups and how does this environment affect the star formation process. Does a clustered star formation simply mean that many independent stars form in a given volume of space or, alterna- tively,do the forming stars affect one another and thus their final properties. Such inter- actions must be primarily gravitational/tidal or through feedback, as even in the densest regions, direct interactions are very rare. If the clustered environment plays a determi- nistic role in the star formation process, there should be certain observational conse- quences that can be searched for. The nature of this relationship has broad implications for galactic and extragalactic star formation alike — from OB associations to super star clusters, from field populations to globular clusters. Star formation is a local proces
