Related papers: Dynamical Models of the Galactic Center
Stars that evolve near the Galactic massive black hole show strange behaviors. The spectroscopic features of these stars show that they must be old. But their luminosities are much higher than the amounts that are predicted by the current…
Nuclear Star Clusters are observed at the center of many galaxies. In particular in the center of the Milky Way the Nuclear Star Cluster coexists with a cen- tral supermassive black hole. The origin of these clusters is still unknown; a…
The Galactic center of the Milky-Way harbors a massive black hole (BH) orbited by a diverse population of young and old stars. A significant fraction of the youngest stars ($\sim4-7$ Myr) reside in a thin stellar disk with puzzling…
The evolution of dark matter in central areas of galaxies is considered (the Milky Way is taken as an example). It is driven by scattering off of dark matter particles by bulge stars, their absorption by the supermassive black hole and…
We present results of N-body simulations aimed at understanding the dynamics of young stars near the Galactic center. Specifically, we model the inspiral of a cluster core containing an intermediate mass black hole and $N \sim 50$ cluster…
We derive new constraints on the mass, rotation, orbit structure and statistical parallax of the Galactic old nuclear star cluster (NSC) and the mass of the supermassive black hole. We combine star counts and kinematic data from Fritz et al…
Observations of the innermost parsec surrounding Sgr A$^*$ ---the supermassive black hole in the center of our Galaxy--- have revealed a diversity of structures whose existence and characteristics apparently defy the fundamental principles…
Many galaxies display warps, lopsided images, asymmetric rotation curves or other features which suggest that their immediate dynamical environment is neither static nor in equilibrium. In Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theories, such…
This paper gives an overview of the attempts to determine the distribution of dark matter in low surface brightness disk and gas-rich dwarf galaxies, both through observations and computer simulations. Observations seem to indicate an…
The spatial distribution of the SMC stellar component is investigated from 2MASS data. The morphology of the different age populations is presented. The center of the distribution is calculated and compared with previous estimations. The…
Due to its proximity, the Milky Way nuclear star cluster provides us with a wealth of data not available in other galactic nuclei. In particular, with adaptive optics, we can observe the detailed properties of individual stars, which can…
Two-body energy exchange between stars orbiting massive black holes (MBHs) leads to the formation of a power-law density distribution n(r)~r^(-a) that diverges towards the MBH. For a single mass population, a=7/4 and the flow of stars is…
The Milky Way is a barred galaxy whose central bulge has a box/peanut shape and consists of multiple stellar populations with different orbit distributions. This review describes dynamical and chemo-dynamical equilibrium models for the…
We consider the origin of the so-called S stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the very center of the Galaxy. These are usually assumed to be massive main-sequence stars. We argue instead that they are the remnants of…
In the Milky Way, the thick disk can be defined using individual stellar abundances, kinematics, or age; or geometrically, as stars high above the mid-plane. In nearby galaxies, where only a geometric definition can be used, thick disks…
We add black holes to nonrotating, spherical galaxy models, with the assumption that the black-hole growth is slow compared with the dynamical time but fast compared with the relaxation time. The outcome differs depending on whether the…
We investigated the dynamical reaction of the central region of galaxies to a falling massive black hole by N-body simulations. As the initial galaxy model, we used an isothermal King model and placed a massive black hole at around the…
The four main findings about the age and abundance structure of the Milky Way bulge based on microlensed dwarf and subgiant stars are: (1) a wide metallicity distribution with distinct peaks at [Fe/H]=-1.09, -0.63, -0.20, +0.12, +0.41; (2)…
From an analysis of the stars remaining in central regions of the Galaxy after subtracting those belonging to the disc and the bulge, we deduce that the inner bulge must have an extra young population with respect the rest of the bulge. It…
The Galactic centre hosts a crowded, dense nuclear star cluster with a half-light radius of 4 pc. Most of the stars in the Galactic centre are cool late-type stars, but there are also >100 hot early-type stars in the central parsec of the…