Related papers: Black hole mass measurements using ionized gas dis…
Combining Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations and accurate 2D bulge/disc decompositions, we present a new study to investigate the effects of dust attenuation on the apparent structural properties of the disc and bulge of spiral…
We present results of new Monte Carlo calculations made with the DIRTY code of radiative transfer of stellar and scattered radiation for a dusty giant late-type galaxy like the Milky Way, which illustrate the effect of the attenuation of…
We describe techniques for measuring the central masses of galaxies using emission-line kinematics observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. For accurate results, it is necessary to model various instrumental effects, particularly the…
We couple non-magnetic, hydrodynamical simulations of collapsing protostellar cores with radiative transfer evolutionary models to generate synthetic observations. We then use these synthetic observations to investigate the extent to which…
The quantity of dust in a spiral disk can be estimated using the dust's typical emission or the extinction of a known source. In this paper, we compare two techniques, one based on emission and one on absorption, applied on sections of…
The total amount of dust grains in protoplanetary disks is one of the key properties that characterize the potential for planet formation. With (sub-)millimeter flux measurements, literature studies usually derive the dust mass using an…
Hierarchical models of galaxy formation and various observational evidence suggest that elliptical galaxies are, like disk galaxies, embedded in massive dark matter halos. Stellar kinematics are considered the most important tracer for this…
The study of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is a young and promising field of research. Formed by runaway collisions of massive stars in young and dense stellar clusters, intermediate-mass black holes could still be present in the…
The stellar dynamic-based black hole mass measurements of M87 are twice that determined via ionized gas kinematics; the former is closer to the estimation from the diameter of the gravitationally-lensed ring around the black hole. Using…
Interstellar dust grains efficiently absorb and scatter UV and optical radiation in galaxies, and therefore can significantly affect the apparent structure of spiral galaxies. We discuss the effect of dust attenuation on the observed…
This paper is the third one in a series, intended to investigate how the observed kinematics of elliptical galaxies are affected by dust attenuation. In Paper I and Paper II, we investigated the effects of dust absorption; here we extend…
The search for intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in the centre of globular clusters is often based on the observation of a central cusp in the surface brightness profile and a rise towards the centre in the velocity dispersion profiles.…
Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we…
(abridged) The dust content of the universe is primarily explored via its interaction with stellar photons, producing interstellar extinction. However, owing to the physical extension of the observing beam, observations may detect scattered…
The mass of the central black hole in many active galactic nuclei has been estimated on the basis of the assumption that the dynamics of the broad emission line gas are dominated by the gravity of the black hole. The most commonly-employed…
We present a new dust extension to the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code crash, which enables it to simulate the propagation of ionizing radiation through mixtures of gas and dust. The new code is applied to study the impact of dust…
The detection of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters has been hotly debated, with different observational methods delivering different outcomes for the same object. In order to understand these discrepancies, we…
Evidence for dust around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the early Universe is strongly suggested by recent observations. However, the accretion mechanism of SMBHs in dusty gas is not well understood yet. We investigate the growth of…
We present a method to investigate relativistic effects arising from large masses. The method is non-perturbative and employs a mean-field approximation and gravitational lensing. Using this method and a basic model of disk galaxy, we find…
We have embarked in an HST program to determine the masses of black holes in spiral galaxies directly by measuring the line emission arising from an extended accretion disk. For each of the galaxies in our sample we have measured the…