Related papers: Loss Cone Dynamics
We consider the problem of star consumption by supermassive black holes in non-spherical (axisymmetric, triaxial) galactic nuclei. We review the previous studies of the loss-cone problem and present a novel simulation method which allows to…
Stars and compact objects that plunge toward a black hole are either 1) captured, emitting gravitational waves as the orbit decays, 2) tidally disrupted, leaving a disc of baryonic material, 3) scattered to a large radius, where they may…
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…
In classical loss cone theory, stars are supplied to a central black hole via gravitational scattering onto low angular momentum orbits. Higher feeding rates are possible if the gravitational potential near the black hole is…
A massive black hole (MBH) consumes stars whose orbits evolve into the small phase-space volume of unstable orbits, the "loss-cone", which take them directly into the MBH, or close enough to interact strongly with it. The resulting…
We study spherical and disk clusters in a near-Keplerian potential of galactic centers or massive black holes. In such a potential orbit precession is commonly retrograde, i.e. direction of the orbit precession is opposite to the orbital…
The capture and subsequent in--spiral of compact stellar remnants by central massive black holes, is one of the more interesting likely sources of gravitational radiation detectable by LISA. The relevant stellar population includes stellar…
The majority of massive black holes (MBHs) likely hosted gas discs during their lifetimes. These could either be long-lived active galactic nuclei (AGN) discs, or shorter-lived discs formed following singular gas infall events, as was…
We estimate the rate at which stars are captured by supermassive black holes (BHs) in the centres of bulges and elliptical galaxies assuming that these initially had an isothermal cusp (rho ~ r^{-2} with velocity dispersion sigma_*). If…
The consequences of nuclear black holes for the structure and dynamics of stellar spheroids are reviewed. Slow growth of a black hole in a pre-existing core produces a steep power-law density profile similar to the cusps seen in faint…
A star wandering close enough to a massive black hole (MBH) can be ripped apart by the tidal forces of the black hole. The advent of wide-field surveys at many wavelengths has quickly increased the number of tidal disruption events (TDEs)…
In a close encounter with a neutron star, a primordial black hole can get gravitationally captured by depositing a considerable amount of energy into nonradial stellar modes of very high angular number $l$. If the neutron-star equation of…
We study the probability of close encounters between stars from a nuclear cluster and a massive black hole. The gravitational field of the system is dominated by the black hole in its sphere of influence. It is further modified by the…
Primordial black holes in the asteroid-mass window ($\sim 10^{-16}$ to $10^{-11} \rm M_{\odot}$), which might constitute all the dark matter, can be captured by stars when they traverse them at low enough velocity. After being placed on a…
We propose a dynamical mechanism for capturing stars around a massive black hole (MBH), which is based on the accumulation there of a very dense cluster of compact stellar remnants. This study is motivated by the presence of ~10 young…
A gap in phase space is opened up by a binary supermassive black hole as it ejects stars in a galactic nucleus. This gap must be refilled before the single black hole that subsequently forms can disrupt or accrete stars. We compute loss…
If the stellar population of the bulge contains black holes formed in the final core collapse of ordinary stars with M \ga 30 M_{\odot}, then about 25,000 stellar mass black holes should have migrated by dynamical friction into the central…
The evolution of a supermassive black hole in the center of galaxy is considered. We analyze the kinetic equation describing relaxation processes associated with stellar encounters. The initial distribution function of stars is assumed to…
A gap in phase-space, the loss cone (LC), is opened up by a supermassive black hole (MBH) as it disrupts or accretes stars in a galactic centre. If a star enters the LC then, depending on its properties, its interaction with the MBH will…
Stars that plunge into the center of a galaxy are tidally perturbed by a supermassive black hole (SMBH), with closer encounters resulting in larger perturbations. Exciting these tides comes at the expense of the star's orbital energy, which…