Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects, observationally resolved, tell us about the mechanisms at stake in their formation. Yet, we still do not understand the diversity involved: why is star cluster formation limited to 1e5 Msun objects in the Milky Way, while some dwarf galaxies like NGC 1705 are able to produce clusters 10 times more massive? Why do dwarfs generally host a higher specific frequency of clusters than larger galaxies? How to connect the present-day, often resolved, stellar systems to the formation of globular clusters at high redshift? And how do these links depend on the galactic and cosmological environments of these clusters? In this review, I present recent advances on star cluster formation and evolution, in galactic and cosmological context. The emphasis is put on the theory, formation scenarios and the effects of the environment on the evolution of the global properties of clusters. A few open questions are identified.

中文翻译：

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演化星系中的星团

它们的普遍性和极高的密度使星团探测器成为星系演化的首要任务。古老的球状星团保留了它们在早期宇宙中组装的物理条件的印记，而较年轻的恒星天体，在观测上已经解决，告诉我们它们形成的危险机制。然而，我们仍然不明白所涉及的多样性：为什么星团的形成仅限于银河系中的 1e5 Msun 天体，而像 NGC 1705 这样的一些矮星系能够产生质量 10 倍以上的星团？为什么矮星通常比更大的星系拥有更高的特定频率的星团？如何连接当今，经常解决，恒星系统在高红移时形成球状星团？这些联系如何取决于这些星团的星系和宇宙环境？在这篇评论中，我介绍了星系和宇宙学背景下星团形成和演化的最新进展。重点放在理论、形成场景和环境对集群全局特性演化的影响上。确定了一些开放性问题。