The Formation and Early Evolution of Young Massive Clusters

We review the formation and early evolution of the most massive (> few 104 M⊙) and dense (radius of a few parsecs) young stellar clusters, focusing on the role that studies of these objects in our Galaxy can play in our understanding of star and planet formation as a whole. Comparing the demographics of young massive cluster (YMC) progenitor clouds and YMCs across the Galaxy shows that gas in the Galactic Center can accumulate to a high enough density that molecular clouds already satisfy the criteria used to define YMCs, without forming stars. In this case formation can proceed in situ — i.e., the stars form at protostellar densities close to the final stellar density. Conversely, in the disk, the gas either begins forming stars while it is being accumulated to high density, in a "conveyor belt" mode, or the timescale to accumulate the gas to such high densities must be much shorter than the star-formation timescale. The distinction between the formation regimes in the two environments is consistent with the predictions of environmentally dependent density thresholds for star formation. This implies that stars in YMCs of similar total mass and radius can have formed at widely different initial protostellar densities. The fact that no strong, systematic variations in fundamental properties (such as the IMF) are observed between YMCs in the disk and Galactic Center suggests that, statistically speaking, stellar mass assembly is not affected by the initial protostellar density. We then review recent theoretical advances and summarize the debate on three key open questions: the initial (proto)stellar distribution, infant (im)mortality, and age spreads within YMCs. We conclude that (1) the initial protostellar distribution is likely hierarchical, (2) YMCs likely experienced a formation history that was dominated by gas exhaustion rather than gas expulsion, (3) YMCs are dynamically stable from a young age, and (4) YMCs have age spreads much smaller than their mean age. Finally, we show that it is plausible that metal-rich globular clusters may have formed in a similar way to YMCs in nearby galaxies. In summary, the study of YMC formation bridges star/planet formation in the solar neighborhood to the oldest structures in the local universe.