Related papers: Secular Stellar Dynamics near a Massive Black Hole
In the vicinity of a massive black hole, stars move on precessing Keplerian orbits. The mutual stochastic gravitational torques between the stellar orbits drive a rapid reorientation of their orbital planes, through a process called vector…
We study the orbital evolution and accretion history of massive black hole (MBH) pairs in rotationally supported circumnuclear discs up to the point where MBHs form binary systems. Our simulations have high resolution in mass and space…
We identify a new secular instability of eccentric stellar disks around supermassive black holes. We show that retrograde precession of the stellar orbits, due to the presence of a stellar cusp, induces coherent torques that amplify…
We study the dynamical evolution of eccentric massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) interacting with unbound stars by means of an extensive set of three body scattering experiments. Compared to previous studies, we extend the investigation…
We have developed a new numerical code to simulate the joint evolution of a massive black hole (MBH) and a surrounding stellar cluster at the center of a galaxy. The physics treated in the simulations include: 2-body relaxation, stellar…
Stars bound to a supermassive black hole interact gravitationally. Persistent torques acting between stellar orbits lead to the rapid resonant relaxation of the orbital orientation vectors ("vector" resonant relaxation) and slower…
We consider spherical stellar clusters with a broad mass function and a relaxation time short enough so that the segregation of massive stars toward the centre occurs before they have time to evolve off the main sequence. The relaxational…
Resonant relaxation (RR) is a rapid relaxation process that operates in the nearly-Keplerian potential near a massive black hole (MBH). RR dominates the dynamics of compact remnants that inspiral into a MBH and emit gravitational waves…
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…
The orbits of stars close to a massive black hole are nearly Keplerian ellipses. Such orbits exert long term torques on each other, which lead to an enhanced angular momentum relaxation known as resonant relaxation. Under certain…
We study the long-term orbital evolution of stars around a merging massive or supermassive black-hole (BH) binary, taking into account the general relativistic effect induced by the BH spin. When the BH spin is significant compared to and…
In galactic nuclei, the gravitational potential is dominated by the central supermassive black hole, so stars follow quasi-Keplerian orbits. These orbits are distorted by gravitational forces from other stars, leading to long-term orbital…
Resonant relaxation has been discussed as an efficient process that changes the angular momenta of stars orbiting around a central supermassive black hole due to the fluctuating gravitational field of the stellar cluster. Other spherical…
Here we discuss the evolution of binaries around MBH in nuclear stellar clusters. We focus on their secular evolution due to the perturbation by the MBH, while simplistically accounting for their collisional evolution. Binaries with highly…
By using direct N-body numerical simulations, we model the dynamical co-evolution of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the surrounding stars in merging galaxies. In order to investigate how different stellar components evolve during…
We explore extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) in the co-evolution of massive black holes (MBHs) and nuclear star clusters (NSCs), which host diverse stellar populations across a wide range of masses. The dynamics are simulated…
We investigate the dynamical interaction of a central star cluster surrounding a super-massive black hole and a central accretion disk. The dissipative force acting on stars in the disk leads to an enhanced mass flow towards the…
Although the association of gamma-ray bursts with massive stellar death is on firm footing, the nature of the progenitor system and the key ingredients required for a massive star to produce a gamma-ray burst remain open questions. Here, we…
It is now well-established that a dark, compact object (DCO), very likely a massive black hole (MBH) of around four million solar masses is lurking at the centre of the Milky Way. While a consensus is emerging about the origin and growth of…
We simulate the star cluster, made of stars in the main sequence and different black hole (BH) remnants, around SgrA* at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Tracking stellar evolution, we find the BH remnant masses and construct the BH mass…