Related papers: Dynamical Friction in Cuspidal Galaxies
We assume that the individual stars which are located at the peripheral parts of the spiral galaxies are experiencing a drag force acting upon them radially. Such a force might be produced by some sort of a dynamically generated viscous…
Metal production in galaxies traces star formation, and is highly concentrated toward the centers of galactic discs. This suggests that galaxies should have inhomogeneous metal distributions with strong radial gradients, but observations of…
Supermassive black holes have been discovered at the centers of galaxies, and also in globular clusters. The data shows correlations between the black hole mass and the elliptical galaxy mass or globular cluster mass. It is shown that this…
One of the strongest predictions of the LambdaCDM cosmological model is the presence of dark satellites orbiting all types of galaxies. We focus here on the dynamical effects of such satellites on disky dwarf galaxies, and demonstrate that…
We analyse how drag forces modify the orbits of objects moving through extended gaseous distributions. We consider how hydrodynamic (surface area) drag forces and dynamical friction (gravitational) drag forces drive the evolution of orbital…
Evolution and disruption of galaxies orbiting in the gravitational field of a larger cluster galaxy are driven by three coupled mechanisms: 1) the heating due to its time dependent motion in the primary; 2) mass loss due to the tidal strain…
Different from Milky-Way-like galaxies, discs of gas-rich galaxies are clumpy. It is believed that the clumps form because of gravitational instability. However, a necessary condition for gravitational instability to develop is that the…
An algorithm is described for evolving the phase-space density of stars or compact objects around a massive black hole at the center of a galaxy. The technique is based on numerical integration of the Fokker-Planck equation in…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…
We study the effect of the dynamical friction induced by the presence of substructure on the statistics of the collapse of density peaks. Applying the results of a former paper we show that within high density environments, like rich…
Uniquely among the dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, Fornax hosts globular clusters. It remains a puzzle as to why dynamical friction has not yet dragged any of Fornax's five globular clusters to the centre, and…
The high-density environment of galaxy clusters is ripe for collisional encounters of galaxies. While the large velocity dispersion of clusters was originally thought to preclude slow encounters, the infall of smaller groups into the…
We follow the sinking of two massive black holes in a spherical stellar system where the black holes become bound under the influence of dynamical friction. Once bound, the binary hardens by three-body encounters with surrounding stars. We…
The evolution of galaxies is driven strongly by dynamical processes including internal instabilities, tidal interactions and mergers. The cluster environment is a useful laboratory for studying these effects. I present recent results on…
In galactic disks, galactic rotation sets the bulk motion of gas, and its energy and momentum can be transferred toward small scales. Additionally, in the interstellar medium, random and noncircular motions arise from stellar feedback,…
The nuclear star cluster surrounding the massive black hole at the Galactic Centre consists of young and old stars, with most of the stellar mass in an extended, cuspy distribution of old stars. The compact cluster of young stars was…
The galactic `dark matter' effect is regarded as one of the major problems in fundamental physics. Here it is explained as a self-interaction dynamical effect of space itself, and so is not caused by an unknown form of matter. Because it…
Supermassive black holes inhabit galactic nuclei, and their presence influences in crucial ways the evolution of the stellar distribution. The low-density cores observed in bright galaxies are probably a result of black hole infall, while…
The results of an extensive numerical study of the orbital dynamics of small bodies ranging from micron-sized dust grains to 1 km objects subject to gas drag and also the gravitational attraction of a non-uniform gaseous nebula are…
Some 30% of disc galaxies have a pronounced central bar feature in the disc plane and many more have weaker features of a similar kind. Kinematic data indicate that the bar constitutes a major non-axisymmetric component of the mass…