Related papers: Making Bright Giants Invisible At The Galactic Cen…
Since 1996 we have known that the Galactic Center (GC) displays a core-like distribution of red giant branch (RGB) stars starting at ~ 10", which poses a theoretical problem, because the GC should have formed a segregated cusp of old stars.…
Observations have revealed a relative paucity of red giant (RG) stars within the central 0.5pc in the Galactic Center (GC). Motivated by this finding we investigate the hypothesis that collisions of stars with a fragmenting accretion disk…
In the Galactic center nuclear star cluster, bright late-type stars exhibit a flat or even a decreasing surface-density profile, while fainter late-type stars maintain a cusp-like profile. Historically, the lack of red giants in the…
We show that collisions with stellar--mass black holes can partially explain the absence of bright giant stars in the Galactic Centre, first noted by Genzel et al, 1996. We show that the missing objects are low--mass giants and AGB stars in…
There is a long-acknowledged deficiency of bright red giants relative to fainter old stars within a few arc seconds of Sgr A*. We explore whether this could be due to tidal stripping by the central black hole. This requires putting the…
Observations in the near-infrared domain showed the presence of the flat core of bright late-type stars inside $\sim 0.5\,{\rm pc}$ from the Galactic center supermassive black hole (Sgr A*), while young massive OB/Wolf-Rayet stars form a…
We simulate collisions involving red-giant stars in the centre of our galaxy. Such encounters may explain the observed paucity of highly luminous red giants within the central 0.2pc. The masses of the missing stars are likely to be in the…
As part of a stellar population sampling program, a series of photometric probes at various field sizes and depths have been obtained in a low extinction window in the galactic anticentre direction. Such data set strong constraints on the…
We explore the role that red giants might play in the central regions of Active Galactic Nuclei. Due to their large radii and the low binding energy of the stellar envelope, giants are vulnerable to envelope stripping from collisions with…
(Abridged) The Galactic Center (GC) hosts a population of young stars some of which seem to form mutually inclined discs of clockwise and counter clockwise rotating stars. We present a warped disc origin scenario for these stars assuming…
We suggest that the gap observed at 20,000 K in the horizontal branches of several Galactic globular clusters is caused by a small amount of extra mass loss which occurs when stars start to "peel off" the red giant branch (RGB), i.e., when…
The near-infrared behavior of the red giant branch (RGB hereafter) as a function of abundance is examined with an unprecedented large sample of 27 Galactic globular clusters with Two Micron All Sky Survey photometry. We propose a new…
Among stars in Galactic globular clusters the carbon abundance tends to decrease with increasing luminosity on the upper red giant branch, particularly within the lowest metallicity clusters. While such a phenomena is not predicted by…
[Abridged] Ensemble studies of red-giant stars with exquisite asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and astrometric constraints offer a novel opportunity to recast and address long-standing questions concerning the evolution of stars and of the…
We give independent proof of the deficit of stars in the in-plane central disc with respect to the predictions of a pure exponential density distribution. We use three different methods: 1) the inversion of the red clump giant distribution…
Our understanding of how the Galaxy was formed and evolves is severely hampered by the lack of precise constraints on basic stellar properties such as distances, masses, and ages. Here, we show that solar-like pulsating red giants represent…
We present preliminary results of our \hst Pa$\alpha$ survey of the Galactic Center (\gc), which maps the central 0.65$\times$0.25 degrees around Sgr A*. This survey provides us with a more complete inventory of massive stars within the…
We analyze three sets of infrared star counts in the inner ~0.5 pc of the Galactic Center. We perform statistical tests on the star counts and model in detail the extinction field and the effects of dwarf-giant collisions on the luminosity…
Models of the origin of young stars in the Galactic Centre are facing various problems. The most promissing scenario of the star formation in a thin self-gravitating disc naturally forms stars on coherently rotating orbits, but it fails to…
The Galactic Centre (GC) has experienced a high degree of recent star-forming activity, as evidenced by the large number of massive stars currently residing there. The relative abundances of chemical elements in the GC may provide insights…