Related papers: Starburst triggered by compressive tides in galaxy…
In interacting galaxies, strong tidal forces disturb the global morphology of the progenitors and give birth to the long stellar, gaseous and dusty tails often observed. In addition to this destructive effect, tidal forces can morph into a…
The disruptive effect of galactic tides is a textbook example of gravitational dynamics. However, depending on the shape of the potential, tides can also become fully compressive. When that is the case, they might trigger or strengthen the…
Star formation in galaxies is for a part driven by galaxy mergers. At low redshift, star formation activity is low in high-density environments like groups and clusters, and the star formation activity of galaxies increases with their…
Using parsec-resolution simulations of a typical galaxy merger, we study the triggering of starbursts by connecting the (inter-)galactic dynamics to the structure of the interstellar medium. The gravitational encounter between two galaxies…
Gravitational tides are widely understood to strip and destroy galactic substructures. In the course of a galaxy merger, however, transient totally compressive tides may develop and prevent star forming regions from dissolving, after they…
Interacting galaxies favor the formation of star clusters but are also suspected to affect their evolution through an intense and rapidly varying tidal field. Treating this complex behaviour remains out-of-reach of (semi-)analytical…
Physics lectures always refer to the tides as a disruptive effect. However, tides can also be compressive. When the potential of two galaxies overlap, as happens during a merger, fully compressive tides can develop and have a strong impact…
Young stars form in clusters within molecular clouds, but older stars are evenly distributed across the galactic disk, necessitating an explanation for cluster dissolution. We analytically study tidal forces from cold molecular clouds as a…
We numerically investigate stellar and gaseous dynamical evolution of mergers between five identical late-type disk galaxies with the special emphasis on star formation history and chemical evolution of multiple galaxy mergers. We found…
The correspondence between galaxy major mergers and starburst activity is well-established observationally and in simulations of low redshift galaxies. However, the evolution of the properties of interactions and of the galaxies involved…
A significant fraction of clusters of galaxies are observed to have substructure, which implies that merging between clusters and subclusters is a rather common physical process of cluster formation. It still remains unclear how cluster…
Extragalactic starbursts induced by gravitational interactions can now be studied from z = ~0 to ~2. The evidence that mergers of gas-rich galaxies tend to trigger galaxy-wide starbursts is strong, both statistically and in individual cases…
Star formation is triggered in essentially three ways: (1) the pressures from existing stars collect and squeeze nearby dense gas into gravitationally unstable configurations, (2) random compression from supersonic turbulence makes new…
We present N-body simulations of star clusters that initially evolve within a strong compressive tidal field and then transition into extensive tidal fields of varying strengths. While subject to compressive tides, clusters can undergo…
Optical and X-ray studies have established the prevalence of significant substructure in clusters of galaxies, indicating that clusters are young systems, and that recent major mergers have occurred in many clusters. Numerical simulations…
How does the tidal debris of minor galaxy mergers contribute to structures in spiral galaxies or in the intergalactic medium? While major mergers are known to create structures such as tidal dwarf galaxies and star clusters within their…
The high-density environment of galaxy clusters is ripe for collisional encounters of galaxies. While the large velocity dispersion of clusters was originally thought to preclude slow encounters, the infall of smaller groups into the…
The evolution of galaxies is driven strongly by dynamical processes including internal instabilities, tidal interactions and mergers. The cluster environment is a useful laboratory for studying these effects. I present recent results on…
Galactic centers are very dynamically active environments, often harbouring a nuclear star cluster and supermassive black hole at their cores. Binaries in these environments are subject to strong tidal fields that can efficiently torque its…
The last tidal encounter between M82 and M81, some 500 Myr ago, had a major impact on what was probably an otherwise normal, quiescent disc galaxy. It caused a concentrated burst of star formation in the form of massive star clusters, which…