The formation, evolution and disruption of star clusters with improved gravitational dynamics in simulated dwarf galaxies

Abstract So far, even the highest resolution galaxy formation simulations with gravitational softening have failed to reproduce realistic life cycles of star clusters. We present the first star-by-star galaxy models of star cluster formation to account for hydrodynamics, star formation, stellar evolution and collisional gravitational interactions between stars and compact remnants using the updated sphgal+ketju code, part of the griffin-project. Gravitational dynamics in the vicinity of >3 M⊙ stars and their remnants are solved with a regularised integrator (ketju) without gravitational softening. Comparisons of idealised star cluster evolution with sphgal+ketju and direct N-body show broad agreement and the failure of simulations that use gravitational softening. In the hydrodynamical simulations of idealised dwarf galaxies run with sphgal+ketju, clusters up to ∼900 M⊙ form compact (effective radii 0.1–1 pc) and their sizes increase by up to a factor of ten in agreement with previous N-body simulations and the observed sizes of exposed star clusters. The sizes increase rapidly once the clusters become exposed due to photoionising radiation. On average 63 % of the gravitationally bound clusters disrupt during the first 100 Myr of evolution in the galactic tidal field. The addition of collisional dynamics reduces the fraction of supernovae in bound clusters by a factor of ∼1.7, however the global star formation and outflow histories change by less than 30 %. We demonstrate that the accurate treatment of gravitational encounters with massive stars enables more realistic star cluster life cycles from the earliest stages of cluster formation until disruption in simulated low-mass galaxies.