Related papers: Loss Cone Dynamics
Galactic center black holes appear to be nearly universally surrounded by dense stellar clusters. When these black holes go through an active accretion phase, the multiple components of the accretion disk, stellar cluster, and black hole…
We address the classical problem of star accretion onto a supermassive central gaseous object in a galactic nucleus. The resulting supermassive central gas-star object is assumed to be located at the centre of a dense stellar system for…
The disruption of a star by the tidal field of a massive black hole is the final outcome of a chain of complex dynamical processes in the host galaxy. I introduce the "loss cone problem", and describe the many theoretical and numerical…
Capture rates of compact objects were calculated by using a recent solution of the Fokker-Planck equation in energy-space, including two-body resonant effects. The fraction of compact objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars and stellar black…
The density of stars in galactic bulges is often observed to be flat or slowly rising inside the influence radius of the supermassive black hole (SMBH). Attributing the dynamical friction force to stars moving more slowly than the test…
A significant fraction of the stellar population in the cusp around central black holes of galaxies consists of compact remnants of evolved stars, such as white dwarfs, neutron stars and stellar mass black holes. We estimate the rate of…
NBody realizations of axisymmetric collisional galaxy cores (e.g. M32, M33, NGC205, Milky Way) with embedded growing black holes are presented. Stars which approach the disruption sphere are disrupted and accreted to the black hole. We…
We demonstrate the existence of an enhanced rate of angular momentum relaxation in nearly Keplerian star clusters, such as those found in the centers of galactic nuclei containing massive black holes. The enhanced relaxation arises because…
Massive black holes (MBHs) with a mass below ~ 1e7 Msun are likely to reside at the centre of dense stellar nuclei shaped by 2-body relaxation, close interactions with the MBH and direct collisions. In this contribution, we stress the role…
Centers of galaxies host both a supermassive black hole and a dense stellar cluster. Such an environment should lead to stellar collisions, possibly at very high velocities so that the total energy involved is of the same order as…
Direct numerical integrations of the two-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation are carried out for compact objects orbiting a supermassive black hole (SBH) at the center of a galaxy. As in Papers I-III, the diffusion coefficients incorporate…
Supermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies dominate the gravitational potential of their surrounding stellar clusters. In these dense environments, stars follow nearly Keplerian orbits, which get slowly distorted as a result of the…
The shape of galaxies depends on their orbital populations. These populations change through capture into and escape from resonance. Capture problems fall into distinct cases depending upon the shape of the potential well. To visualise the…
We consider the problem of consumption of stars by a supermassive black hole (SBH) at the center of an axisymmetric galaxy. Inside the SBH sphere of influence, motion of stars in the mean field is regular and can be described analytically…
A supermassive black hole can disrupt a star when its tidal field exceeds the star's self-gravity, and can directly capture stars that cross its event horizon. For black holes with mass M > 10^7 solar masses, tidal disruption of…
Multiple models have been suggested over the years to explain the structure and support of accretion disks around supermassive black holes, from the standard thin thermal-pressure-dominated $\alpha$-disk model to more recent models that…
The presence of young massive stars orbiting on eccentric rings within a few tenths of a parsec of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic centre is challenging for theories of star formation. The high tidal shear from the black hole…
When galaxies collide, dynamical friction drives their central supermassive black holes close enought to each other such that gravitational radiation becomes the leading dissipative effect. Gravitational radiation takes away energy,…
Stars and stellar remnants orbiting a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can interact with an active galactic nucleus (AGN) disc. Over time, prograde orbiters (inclination $i<90^{\circ}$) decrease inclination, as well as semi-major axis $(a)$…
Super-massive black holes, with masses larger than a million times that of the Sun, appear to inhabit the centers of all massive galaxies. Cosmologically-motivated theories of galaxy formation need feedback from these super-massive black…