Related papers: Black holes and core expansion in massive star clu…
We present the results of realistic N-body modelling of massive star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, aimed at investigating a dynamical origin for the radius-age trend observed in these systems. We find that stellar-mass black holes,…
Core radii of globular clusters in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds show an increasing trend with age. We propose that this trend is a dynamical effect resulting from the accumulation of massive stars and stellar-mass black holes at…
We use N-body simulations of star clusters to investigate the possible dynamical origins of the observed spread in core radius among intermediate-age and old star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Two effects are considered, a…
Our current understanding of the stellar initial mass function and massive star evolution suggests that young globular clusters may have formed hundreds to thousands of stellar-mass black holes, the remnants of stars with initial masses…
We study the early dynamical evolution of young, dense star clusters using Monte Carlo simulations for systems with up to N~10^7 stars. Rapid mass segregation of massive main-sequence stars and the development of the Spitzer instability can…
A star with main sequence mass greater than $25\sim 30\msun$ may collapse to a black hole of about 10 $\msun$ at the final stage of the evolution. About an order of 1\% of stellar mass is likely to be in form of such black holes in…
Two-body relaxation times of nuclear star clusters are short enough that gravitational encounters should substantially affect their structure in 10 Gyr or less. In nuclear star clusters without massive black holes, dynamical evolution is a…
We review possible dynamical formation processes for central massive black holes in dense star clusters. We focus on the early dynamical evolution of young clusters containing a few thousand to a few million stars. One natural formation…
More than 50 years have elapsed since the first studies of star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds. The wealth of data accumulated since then has not only revealed a large cluster system, but also a diversified one, filling loci in the age,…
The observed properties of young star clusters, such as the core radius and luminosity profile, change rapidly during the early evolution of the clusters. Here we present observations of 6 young clusters in M51 where we derive their sizes…
We performed N-body simulations of both individual cluster evolution and subcluster coalescence, demonstrating that cluster evolution and its outcomes strongly depend on the cluster formation process through comparisons of different gas…
The distribution of size as a function of age observed for star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is very puzzling: young clusters are all compact, while the oldest systems show both small and large sizes. It is commonly…
Making use of a new N-body model to describe the evolution of a moderate-size globular cluster we investigate the characteristics of the population of black holes within such a cluster. This model reaches core-collapse and achieves a peak…
In this paper we report results of collisional N-body simulations of the dynamical evolution of equal-mass star clusters containing a massive central black hole. Each cluster is composed of between 5,000 to 180,000 stars together with a…
We study the dynamical evolution of a stellar disk orbiting a massive black hole. We explore the role of two-body relaxation, mass segregation, stellar evolution and binary heating in affecting the disk evolution, and consider the impact of…
We present the first study of the dynamical evolution of an isolated star cluster that combines a significant population of primordial binaries with the presence of a central black hole. We use equal-mass direct N-body simulations, with N…
We present details of the database from a large Cycle 7 HST project to study the formation and evolution of rich star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (see Elson et al., this volume). Our data set, which includes NICMOS, WFPC2 and…
There is currently much interest in the possible presence of intermediate-mass black holes in the cores of globular clusters. Based on theoretical arguments and simulation results it has previously been suggested that a large core radius --…
We present the first study of the dynamical evolution of a star cluster that combines a significant population of primordial binaries with the presence of a central black hole. We use direct N-body simulations, with a black hole mass of…
Globular clusters should be born with significant numbers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs). It has been thought for two decades that very few of these BHs could be retained through the cluster lifetime. With masses ~10 MSun, BHs are ~20…