Related papers: The Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster in Context
The centre of the Milky Way is occupied by a nuclear star cluster, which contains the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. The cluster is embedded in the larger surrounding nuclear stellar disc. These three components dominate the mass budget of…
The innermost regions of most galaxies are characterised by the presence of extremely dense nuclear star clusters. Nevertheless, these clusters are not the only stellar component present in galactic nuclei, where larger stellar structures…
The Galactic Center is the closest galactic nucleus that can be studied with unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity. We summarize recent basic observational results on Sagittarius A* and the conditions for star formation in the…
The Milky Way nuclear star cluster (MWNSC) is located together with its surrounding nuclear stellar disc (MWNSD) in the Galactic centre and they dominate the gravitational potential within the inner 300\,pc. However, the formation and…
The Galactic Center is an excellent laboratory for studying phenomena and physical processes that may be occurring in many other galactic nuclei. The Center of our Milky Way is by far the closest galactic nucleus, and observations with…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are massive star clusters found in the innermost region of most galaxies. While recent studies suggest that low-mass NSCs in dwarf galaxies form largely out of the merger of globular clusters and NSCs in massive…
Sagittarius A*, the super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is surrounded by a small cluster of high velocity stars, known as the S-stars. We aim to constrain the amount and nature of stellar and dark mass associated with…
The centres of galaxies host nuclear stellar clusters, supermassive black holes, or both. The origin of this dichotomy is still a mystery. Nuclear stellar clusters are the densest stellar system in the Universe, so they are ideal places for…
We present high-resolution seeing limited and AO NIR imaging observations of the stellar cluster within about one parsec of Sgr A*, the massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. Stellar number counts and the diffuse background…
A large fraction of bulgeless disk galaxies contain young compact stellar systems at their centers, in spite of the local gravitational stability of these disks. We evaluate two contrasting hypotheses for the origin of the nuclear star…
The origin of the Nuclear Star Cluster in the centre of our Galaxy is still unknown. One possibility is that it formed after the disruption of stellar clusters that spiralled into the Galactic Centre due to dynamical friction. We trace the…
The centers of stellar spheroids are often marked by the presence of nucleated central regions, called nuclear star clusters (NSCs). The origin of NSCs is still unclear. Here we investigate the possibility that NSCs originate from the…
Here we present the fundamental properties of the nuclear cluster of the Milky Way. First, we derive its structural properties by constructing a density map of the central 1000'' using extinction-corrected star counts. We can describe the…
Galactic nuclei, like the one of the Milky Way, are extreme places with high stellar densities and, in most cases, hosting a supermassive black hole. One of the scenarios proposed for the formation of the Galactic nucleus is by merging of…
We present new HST I-band images of a sample of 77 nearby, late-type spiral galaxies with low inclination. The main purpose of this catalog is to study the frequency and properties of nuclear star clusters. In 59 galaxies of our sample, we…
With its extreme density of stars and stellar remnants, dense young massive clusters, high specific star formation rate, intense radiation field, high magnetic field strength, and properties of the interstellar medium that resemble those in…
A massive black hole resides in the center of most, perhaps all galaxies. The one in the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, provides a uniquely accessible laboratory for studying in detail the connections and interactions between a…
We summarize the recent results of our survey of the nearest nuclear star clusters. The purpose of the survey is to understand nuclear star cluster formation mechanisms and constrain the presence of black holes using adaptive optics…
This chapter provides a detailed overview of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, located in the dense Galactic Center region approximately 8 kpc from Earth. Despite its relatively low…
The region bounded by the inner tens of light years at the center of the Milky Way contains five principal components that coexist within the central deep gravitational potential well. These constituents are a black hole candidate (Sgr~A*)…