Abstract
A great burst of cluster formation increased the rate at which open clusters were formed in the Large Magellanic Cloud 3-5 Gyr ago by at least an order of magnitude. On the other hand, the rate of star formation ~4 Gyr appears to have increased by a factor of only 2-4. This shows that the rate of cluster formation is not a good tracer of the rate at which stars are formed. Normalized to the same rate of star formation, the Large Magellanic Cloud is presently forming 600 times more star clusters than the Local Group dwarf irregular IC 1613. The high rate of cluster formation in merging gas-rich galaxies suggests that strong shocks might favor the formation of clusters.
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