Related papers: The circumnuclear environment in M31
An increasing number of exoplanets have been discovered in the Milky Way galaxy, which is also known to harbour a super-massive black hole (Sagittarius A*) at its centre. Here, we investigate how the central black hole (BH) activity may…
We present a series of $N$-body simulations representing the evolution of a galactic nucleus and its stellar content in a nearly one-to-one representation. The aim of this suite of simulations is to shed light on the interplay between…
Active galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their center, which grows by accreting matter from the surrounding galaxy. The accretion process in the central ~10 parsecs has not been directly resolved in previous observations, due to…
Globular clusters contain multiple stellar populations, with some previous generation of stars polluting the current stars with heavier elements. Understanding the history of globular clusters is helpful in understanding how galaxies merged…
Using a hydrodynamic adaptive mesh refinement code, we simulate the growth and evolution of a galaxy, which could potentially host a supermassive black hole, within a cosmological volume. Reaching a dynamical range in excess of 10 million,…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the sites of star formation and stellar feedback in galaxies. Their properties set the initial conditions for star formation and their lifecycles determine how feedback regulates galaxy evolution. In recent…
Reactions between atomic nuclei are measured in great detail in terrestrial laboratory experiments; transferring and extrapolating this knowledge to how the same reactions act within cosmic environments presents major challenges.…
The globular cluster (GC) systems of the Milky Way and of our neighboring spiral galaxy, M31, comprise 2 distinct entities, differing in 3 respects. 1. M31 has young GCs, ages from ~100 Myr to 5 Gyr old, as well as old globular clusters. No…
Our understanding of the cosmic evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) has been revolutionized by the advent of large multiwavelength extragalactic surveys, which have enabled detailed statistical studies of the host galaxies and…
The massive black hole (MBH) in the Galactic Center and the stars around it form a unique stellar dynamics laboratory for studying how relaxation processes affect the distribution of stars and compact remnants and lead to close interactions…
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive, multi-component,…
The Galactic centre - as the closest galactic nucleus - holds both intrinsic interest and possibly represents a useful analogue to star-burst nuclei which we can observe with orders of magnitude finer detail than these external systems. The…
The Galactic center (GC) provides a unique laboratory for a detailed examination of the interplay between massive star formation and the nuclear environment of our Galaxy. Here, we present an 100 ks Chandra ACIS observation of the Arches…
Two interesting hypotheses about black holes have been proposed. The older one states that microscopic black holes can be accountable for the observed dark matter density. The newer one states that black holes are coupled to the expansion…
The cores of active galactic nuclei (AGN) harbor some of the most extreme conditions of matter and energy in the Universe. One of the major goals of high-energy astrophysics is to probe these extreme environments in the vicinity of…
The nature of Galactic Center could be probed by lensing experiments capable of testing the spatial and velocity distributions of stars nearby and beyond it. Several hypotheses are possible (e.g. massive neutrino condensation, boson star)…
Galactic bulges are central to understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Here we report on recent studies using micro-lensing events to obtain spectra of high resolution and moderately high signal-to-noise ratios of dwarf stars in the…
Several thousand solar masses of molecular, atomic and ionized gas lie in the innermost ~10 pc of our Galaxy. The most relevant structure of molecular gas is the circumnuclear ring (CNR), a dense and clumpy ring surrounding the supermassive…
This thesis embraces several aspects of theoretical stellar dynamics in clusters, both analytically and numerically. We try to elucidate the phenomena currently observed in all types of galaxies, including AGNs and quasars, some of the most…
We study the dynamics of nuclear star clusters, the dense stellar environments surrounding massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. We consider angular momentum diffusion due to two-body scatterings among stellar objects and energy…