Related papers: Hypervelocity Planets and Transits Around Hypervel…
The hierarchical nature of galaxy formation suggests that a supermassive black hole binary could exist in our galactic center. We propose a new approach to constraining the possible orbital configuration of such a binary companion to the…
Dense stellar clusters surround the supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galactic nuclei. Interactions within the cluster can alter the stellar orbits, occasionally driving a star into the SMBH's tidal radius where it becomes ruptured, or…
We estimate the number of individual, fast-moving stars observable in globular clusters under the assumption that the clusters contain massive central black holes which follow the galactic black-hole mass vs. sigma relationship. We find…
We analyze the outcome of the interaction between a stellar binary and a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) by performing a large number of gravitational scattering experiments. Most of the encounters result in either the ejection of an…
We study the long-term evolution of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) at the centers of galaxies using detailed full three-body scattering experiments. Stars, drawn from a distribution unbound to the binary, are ejected by the…
Binary systems of compact objects are strong emitters of gravitational waves whose amplitude depends on the binary orbital parameters as the component mass, the orbital semi-major axis and eccentricity. Here, in addition to the famous…
The Milky Way Galaxy hosts a four million solar mass black hole, Sgr A*, that underwent a major accretion episode approximately 3-6 Myr ago. During the episode, hundreds of young massive stars formed in a disc orbiting Sgr A* in the central…
We discuss our targeted search for hypervelocity stars (HVSs), stars traveling with velocities so extreme that dynamical ejection from a massive black hole is their only suggested origin. Our survey, now half complete, has successfully…
Runaway stars are stars observed to have large peculiar velocities. Two mechanisms are thought to contribute to the ejection of runaway stars, both involve binarity (or higher multiplicity). In the binary supernova scenario a runaway star…
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) discovered in the Milky Way (MW) halo are thought to be ejected from near the massive black hole (MBH) at the galactic centre. In this paper we investigate the spatial and velocity distributions of the HVSs which…
Most of the observed extrasolar planets are found on tight and often eccentric orbits. The high eccentricities are not easily explained by planet-formation models, which predict that planets should be on rather circular orbits. Here we…
The centre of the Milky Way hosts a supermassive black hole of 4 million solar masses called Sagittarius A*. This object has been observed for more than 20 years in the near infrared. This has confirmed some effects of General Relativity.…
We consider the long-term tidal heating of a star by the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center, SgrA*. We show that gravitational interaction with background stars leads to a linear growth of the tidal excitation energy with the…
Galaxy mergers lead to the formation of massive black hole binaries which can accelerate background stars close to the speed of light. We estimate the comoving density of ejected stars with a peculiar velocity in excess of $0.1c$ or $0.5c$…
The third observing run of the LIGO/Virgo/KARGA collaboration reported a few neutron star - black hole (NSBH) merger events. While NSBH mergers have yet to receive extensive theoretical attention, they may have a promising electromagnetic…
Hypervelocity stars are believed to be ejected out from the Galactic center through dynamical interactions of (binary) stars with the central massive black hole(s). In this letter, we report 13 metal-poor F-type hypervelocity star…
The radial velocity method for detecting extra-solar planets relies on measuring the star's wobble around the system's center of mass. Since this is an indirect method, we may ask if there are other dynamical effects that can mimic such…
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are valuable tracers of extreme dynamical processes. The Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr dSph), currently undergoing tidal disruption, offers a unique environment to search for such stars. We aim to…
If a traversable wormhole smoothly connects two different spacetimes, then the flux cannot be separately conserved in any of these spaces individually. Then objects propagating in a vicinity of a wormhole in one space must feel influence of…
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) travel with velocities so extreme that dynamical ejection from a massive black hole is their only suggested origin. Following our discovery of the first HVS, we have undertaken a dedicated survey for more HVSs in…