Related papers: MOCCA Survey Database I. BHs in star clusters
We study the long term dynamical evolution of stellar mass black holes (BHs) at the Galactic center (GC) and put constraints on their number and central mass distribution. Models of the GC are considered that have not yet achieved a steady…
Recent observations have detected top-heavy IMFs in dense star forming regions like the Arches cluster. Whether such IMFs also exist in old dense stellar systems like globular clusters is difficult to constrain, because massive stars…
When embedded in dense cluster cores, intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) acquire close stellar or stellar-remnant companions. These companions are not only gravitationally bound, they tend to hierarchically isolate from other cluster…
We describe Monte Carlo models for the dynamical evolution of the nearby globular cluster M4. The code includes treatments of two-body relaxation, three- and four-body interactions involving primordial binaries and those formed dynamically,…
Previous theoretical studies suggest that the Population III (Pop3) stars tend to form in extremely metal poor gas clouds with approximately $10^5 M_\odot$ embedded in mini dark matter halos. Very massive stars can form via multiple…
Recent observational evidence, numerical simulations and theoretical arguments seem to indicate that stellar mass black holes (BH) persist in stellar systems such as globular star clusters for much longer than previously thought.…
I present here our project, the Bologna Open Clusters Chemical Evolution (BOCCE) project, aimed at using Open Clusters as tracers of the disk properties and their evolution with time. We are collecting and homogeneously analyzing data, both…
We investigate the possibility that present-day galaxies and their dark matter haloes contain a population of massive black holes (MBHs) that form by hierarchical merging of the black hole remnants of the first stars in the Universe. Some…
The growing population of binary black holes (BBHs) observed by gravitational wave detectors is a potential Rosetta stone for understanding their formation channels. Here, we use an upgraded version of our semi-analytic codes {\sc…
Observational evidence has been mounting for the existence of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs, 10^2-10^5 Msun), but observing them at all, much less constraining their masses, is very challenging. In one theorized formation channel,…
The growing number of black hole binary (BHB) mergers detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have the potential to enable an unprecedented characterization of the physical processes and astrophysical…
Numerical relativity predicts that the coalescence of a black hole-binary causes the newly formed black hole to recoil, and evidence for such recoils has been found in the gravitational waves observed during the merger of stellar-mass black…
Nuclear star clusters, which fragment into metal-poor stars in situ at the centers of protogalaxies, provide ideal environments for the formation of intermediate-mass black holes with masses $10^3-10^6M_\odot$. We utilize the semianalytic…
In this paper, we address the question: What is the probability of stellar-mass black hole (BH) binaries co-existing in a globular cluster with an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH)? Our results suggest that the detection of one or more BH…
We investigated the evolution of a massive galactic nucleus hosting a super-massive black hole (SMBH) with mass $M_\mathrm{SMBH}=10^8 \mathrm{M}_\odot$ surrounded by a population of 42 heavy star clusters (GCs). Using direct $N$-body…
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…
Using three newly identified galaxy clusters at z~1 (photometric redshift) we measure the evolution of the galaxies within clusters from high redshift to the present day by studying the growth of the red cluster sequence. The clusters are…
We present an indirect dynamical evidence, based on the measure of the core to half mass radius ratio (rc/rh), that a significant fraction of globular clusters in our galaxy with an age greater than 10 half-mass relaxation times (t_rh) host…
The evolution of dense star clusters is followed by direct high-accuracy N-body simulation. The problem is to first order a gravitational N-body problem, but stars evolve due to astrophysics and the more massive ones form black holes or…
We study the dynamical evolution of globular clusters containing primordial binaries, including full single and binary stellar evolution using our Monte Carlo cluster evolution code updated with an adaptation of the single and binary…