Title:Star clusters in complex tidal fields

Abstract:
The galactic environment plays an important role on the evolution of star clusters. In particular, the mass 
loss rate of a cluster is mainly ruled by the tidal field. Up to now, the theoretical investigation on this topic 
made use strong simplifications, like a circular orbit around a point-mass galaxy. Thanks to numerical 
simulations of both the galaxy and the cluster, we propose to follow the evolution of clusters in any tidal 
field, from the idealized case of point-mass, to the more complex configuration of galaxy mergers. Our 
results indicate that rapid variations of the tidal field affect significantly the mass loss rate, and thus the 
cluster mass function.