Related papers: Nuclear Star Clusters
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
Giant elliptical galaxies, believed to be built from the merger of lesser galaxies, are known to house a massive black hole at their center rather than a compact star cluster. If low- and intermediate-mass galaxies do indeed partake in the…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are dense star clusters located at the centre of galaxies spanning a wide range of masses and morphologies. Analysing NSC occupation statistics in different environments provides an invaluable window into…
We summarize the recent results of our survey of the nearest nuclear star clusters. The purpose of the survey is to understand nuclear star cluster formation mechanisms and constrain the presence of black holes using adaptive optics…
Nuclear rings are excellent laboratories for probing diverse phenomena such as the formation and evolution of young massive star clusters (YMCs), nuclear starbursts, as well as the secular evolution and dynamics of their host galaxies. We…
Star clusters that form in nuclear rings appear to be at slightly larger radii than the gas. We argue that the star clusters move out from the gas in which they are formed because of satellite-disk tidal interactions. In calculating the…
We present new HST I-band images of a sample of 77 nearby, late-type spiral galaxies with low inclination. The main purpose of this catalog is to study the frequency and properties of nuclear star clusters. In 59 galaxies of our sample, we…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
We investigate whether nuclear star clusters and supermassive black holes follow a common set of mass scaling relations with their host galaxy's properties, and hence can be considered to form a single class of central massive object. We…
In a virialized stellar system, the mean-square velocity is a direct tracer of the energy per unit mass of the system. Here, we exploit this to estimate and compare root-mean-square velocities for a large sample of nuclear star clusters and…
The Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc (NSD) and nuclear star cluster (NSC) are the main features of the Galactic centre. Nevertheless, their observation is hampered by the extreme source crowding and high extinction. Hence, their relation…
High spatial resolution, near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of the nuclear star cluster have given key new insights about the dynamics, evolution and mass distribution in the Milky Way Center. The central parsec is powered by a cluster…
(Abridged) We study the nuclear star clusters in spiral galaxies of various Hubble types using spectra obtained with STIS on-board HST. We observed the nuclear clusters in 40 galaxies, selected from two previous HST/WFPC2 imaging surveys.…
We present new upper limits for black hole masses in extremely late type spiral galaxies. We confirm that this class of galaxies has black holes with masses less than 10^6 Msolar, if any. We also derive new upper limits for nuclear star…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
The dynamics of galactic nuclei can be affected by several mechanisms. Among these are stellar evolution, stellar collisions, mass segregation, and tidal disruptions of stars due to the central black hole. In this presentation I will…
We summarize some recent results from our observational campaign to study the central regions of spiral galaxies of late Hubble type (Scd - Sm). These disk-dominated, bulgeless galaxies have an apparently uneventful merger history. The…
The accretion of massive star clusters via dynamical friction has previously been established to be a likely scenario for the build up of nuclear stellar clusters (NSCs). A remaining issue is whether strong external tidal perturbation may…
Nuclear stellar clusters are common in the center of galaxies. We consider the possibility that their progenitors assumed to be globular clusters may have formed elsewhere, migrated to and assembled near their present location. The main…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…