Related papers: Shell Galaxies, Dynamical Friction, and Dwarf Disr…
Globular clusters which exhibit chemical and dynamical complexity have been suggested to be the stripped nuclei of dwarf galaxies (e.g., M54, $\omega$ Cen). We use $N$-body simulations of nuclear star clusters forming via the mergers of…
Most Milky Way dwarf galaxies are much less bound to their host than are relics of Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus and Sgr. These dwarfs are expected to have fallen into the Galactic halo less than 3 Gyr ago, and will therefore have undergone no…
The aim of this paper is to cast light on the formation and evolution of elliptical galaxies by means of N-body/hydro-dynamical simulations that include star formation, feed-back and chemical evolution. Particular attention is paid to the…
We simulate the dynamical, chemical, and spectro-photometric evolution of dwarf and normal elliptical galaxies embedded in a dark matter halo, using a three-dimensional N-body/SPH simulation code. For the forming dwarf elliptical galaxies,…
N-body simulations of collisionless collapse have offered important clues to the construction of realistic stellar dynamical models of elliptical galaxies. Such simulations confirm and quantify the qualitative expectation that rapid…
Space-based observations are beginning to yield detailed information about the stellar kinematics at the very centers of galaxies, within the sphere of gravitational influence of the black hole. The structure and dynamics of these regions…
Young star clusters in interacting galaxies are often found in groups or clusters of star clusters containing up to 100 single clusters. In our project we study the future fate of these clusters of star clusters. We find that the star…
Cosmological N-body simulations with scale-invariant initial perturbations show too many virialized objects of dwarf-galaxy masses in a typical galactic halo in contradiction to observation and stability of galactic discs. We present a…
Chemo-dynamical N-body simulations are an essential tool for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. As the number of observationally determined stellar abundances continues to climb, these simulations are able to provide new…
We use numerical simulations to examine the structure of merger remnants resulting from collisions of gas-rich spiral galaxies. When the gas fraction of the progenitors is small, the remnants structurally and kinematically resemble…
It has been proposed that mergers induce starbursts and lead to important morphological changes in galaxies. Most studies so far have focused on large galaxies, but dwarfs might also experience such events, since the halo mass function is…
Numerical simulations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies undergoing several close encounters with the Milky Way are described. By comparing our models to observed properties of the recently discovered dwarf galaxy in Sagittarius (Sgr), we discuss…
The recent discovery of diffuse dwarf galaxies that are deficient in dark matter appears to challenge the current paradigm of structure formation in our Universe. We describe the numerical experiments to determine if the so-called dark…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
Using high-resolution N-body simulations we study the stellar properties of dwarf spheroidal galaxies resulting from the tidally induced morphological transformation of disky dwarfs on a cosmologically motivated eccentric orbit around the…
From the archaeological point of view, the local dwarf galaxies are unique objects in which the imprint of the conditions that shaped the early structure formation can be studied today at high resolution. Over the last decade, this new…
In the standard cosmological paradigm, structure formation occurs via gravitational encounters and mergers between galaxies and dark matter halos. These collisionless self-gravitating systems therefore prevail in a state of non-equilibrium…
Recent spectroscopic and morphological observational studies of galaxies around NGC 1399 in the Fornax Cluster (Drinkwater et al. 2000b) have discovered several `ultra-compact dwarf' galaxies with intrinsic sizes of $\sim$ 100 pc and…
We consider the orbital evolution of satellites in galaxy mergers, focusing on the evolution of eccentricity. Using a large suite of N-body simulations, we study the phenomenon of satellite orbital radialization -- a profound increase in…
In this paper we treat the problem of the dynamical friction decay of a massive object moving in an elliptical galaxy with a cuspidal inner distribution of the mass density. We present results obtained by both self-consistent, direct…