Mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies trigger violent starbursts that - over
timescales of >100 Myr and regions >10 kpc - form massive and compact
star clusters comparable in mass and radii to Galactic globular clusters. The
star formation efficiency is higher by 1 - 2 orders of magnitude in these
bursts than in undisturbed spirals, irregulars or even BCDs. We ask the
question if star formation in these extreme regimes is just a scaled-up version
of the normal star formation mode of if the formation of globular clusters
reveals fundamentally different conditions.Comment: 4 pages To appear in The Evolution of Galaxies. II. Basic building
blocks, eds. M. Sauvage, G. Stasinska, L. Vigroux, D. Schaerer, S. Madde
