Related papers: Donald Lynden-Bell: A Biographical Memoir
Collisionless and weakly collisional plasmas often exhibit non-thermal quasi-equilibria. Among these quasi-equilibria, distributions with power-law tails are ubiquitous. It is shown that the statistical-mechanical approach originally…
The surface brightness distribution in the majority of stellar galactic discs falls off exponentially. Often what lies beyond such a stellar disc is the neutral hydrogen gas whose distribution also follows a nearly exponential profile at…
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 introduce a new model for the structure and evolution of the gas in galactic discs. In the model the gas is in vertical pressure and energy balance. Star formation feedback injects energy and momentum, and non-axisymmetric torques…
Gravitational interactions and mergers are shaping and reshaping galaxies throughout the observable universe. While observations of interacting galaxies at low redshifts yield detailed information about the processes at work, observations…
In the past two decades, secular evolution has emerged as an important new paradigm for the formation and evolution of the Hubble sequence of galaxies. A new dynamical mechanism was identified through which density waves in galaxies, in the…
Between 1972 and 1975, Jacob Bekenstein proposed that black holes possess entropy proportional to their horizon area, and Stephen Hawking derived this relationship from semiclassical quantum field theory in curved spacetime, predicting…
The existence of light, fundamental bosonic fields is an attractive possibility that can be tested via black hole observations. We study the effect of a tidal field -- caused by a companion star or black hole -- on the evolution of…
The discovery in the early 1970s that black holes radiate as black bodies has radically affected our understanding of general relativity, and offered us some early hints about the nature of quantum gravity. In this chapter I will review the…
We have discovered a class of eccentric binary systems within the Kepler data archive that have dynamic tidal distortions and tidally-induced pulsations. Each has a uniquely shaped light curve that is characterized by periodic brightening…
We present a brief history of Galactic astrophysics, and explain the origin of halo substructure in the Galaxy. We motivate our study of tidal streams by highlighting the tight constraints that analysis of the trajectories of tidal streams…
We present the telltale signature of the tidal capture and disruption of an object by a massive black hole in a galactic centre. As a result of the interaction with the black hole's strong gravitational field, the object's light curve can…
To mark the half-century anniversary of this newly-born field of Cataclysmic Variables, a special emphasis is made in this review, on the Doppler Effect as a tool in astrophysics. The Doppler Effect was in fact, discovered almost 170 years…
This is a pedagogical review of recent results on the interactions of central massive black holes with stars very near them, focused on the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Table of contents: [1] Introduction [2] Stellar dynamics…
Accretion discs are present around both stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. A wide variety of circumstantial evidence implies that many of these discs are warped. The standard…
By employing Tsallis' extensive but non-additive $\delta$-entropy, we formulate the first two laws of thermodynamics for gravitating systems. By invoking Carath\'{e}odory's principle, we pay particular attention to the integrating factor…
We propose to unify two a priori distinct aspects of black hole physics : their thermodynamics, and their effective dynamics when they are "skeletonized" as point particles (a useful procedure when tackling, for example, their motion in a…
The concept of stars being tidally ripped apart and consumed by a massive black hole (MBH) lurking in the center of a galaxy first captivated theorists in the late 1970's. The observational evidence for these rare but illuminating phenomena…
The response of astrophysical compact objects to external tidal fields carries valuable information on the nature of these objects, on the equation of state of matter, and on the underlying gravitational theory. In this work, we highlight…
The beam-plasma instability, i.e. the response of the plasma bulk to the injection of supra thermal charged-particle beams, results to be appropriately characterized by a long-range interaction system. This physical system hosts a number of…