Black Holes and Nuclear Dynamics
Abstract
Supermassive black holes inhabit galactic nuclei, and their presence influences in crucial ways the evolution of the stellar distribution. The low-density cores observed in bright galaxies are probably a result of black hole infall, while steep density cusps like those at the Galactic center are a result of energy exchange between stars moving in the gravitational field of the single black hole. Loss-cone dynamics are substantially more complex in galactic nuclei than in collisionally-relaxed systems like globular clusters due to the wider variety of possible geometries and orbital populations. The rate of star-black hole interactions has begun to be constrained through observations of energetic events associated with stellar tidal disruptions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0602353,
title = {Black Holes and Nuclear Dynamics},
author = {David Merritt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0602353},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
9 pages. Invited contribution to "AGN and Galaxy Evolution," held in the Specola Vaticana, Castel Gandolfo, Italy, 3 - 6 October 2005