Related papers: The Galactic Underworld: The spatial distribution …
Supernovae, the explosive deaths of massive stars, create heavy elements and form black holes and neutron stars. These compact objects often receive a velocity at formation, a "kick" whose physical origin remains debated. We investigate…
We consider the origin of the so-called S stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the very center of the Galaxy. These are usually assumed to be massive main-sequence stars. We argue instead that they are the remnants of…
The Milky Way's satellite galaxies and Globular Clusters (GCs) are known to exhibit an anisotropic spatial distribution. We examine in detail this anisotropy by the means of the inertia tensor. We estimate the statistical significance of…
Supermassive black holes inhabit galactic nuclei, and their presence influences in crucial ways the evolution of the stellar distribution. The low-density cores observed in bright galaxies are probably a result of black hole infall, while…
We find the distribution of coalescence times, birthrates, spatial velocities, and subsequent radial offsets of coalescing neutron stars (NSs) in various galactic potentials accounting for large asymmetric kicks introduced during a…
Some low surface brightness galaxies are known to have extremely thin stellar disks with the vertical to planar axes ratio 0.1 or less, often referred to as superthin disks. Although their existence is known for over three decades, the…
The population of young stars near the Supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the Galactic Center (GC) has presented an unexpected challenge to theories of star formation. Kinematics measurements of these stars have revealed a stellar disk…
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…
Among the most explored directions in the study of dense stellar systems is the investigation of the effects of the retention of supernova remnants, especially that of the massive stellar remnant black holes (BHs), in star clusters. By…
Most stellar remnants so far have been found in binary systems, where they interact with matter from their companions. Isolated neutron stars and black holes are difficult to find as they are dark, yet they are predicted to exist in our…
This article summarizes recent work on the luminosity and mass distribution of the Galactic bulge and disk, and on the mass of the Milky Way's dark halo. A new luminosity model consistent with the COBE NIR data and the apparent magnitude…
Astronomers have been using the measured luminosity to estimate the {\em luminous mass} of stars, based on empirically established mass-to-light ratio which seems to be only applicable to a special class of stars---the main-sequence…
The radial distribution of mass in a disk galaxy is strongly constrained by its rotation curve. The separate contributions from the individual stellar populations and dark matter (DM) are not easily disentangled, however, especially since…
In this paper, I review some of the basic properties of the pulsar population in globular clusters (GCs) and compare it with the the Galactic disk population. The neutron stars (NSs) in GCs were likely formed - and appear to continue…
We analyze deep near-IR adaptive optics imaging as well as new proper motion data of the nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way. The surface density distribution of faint stars peaks within 0.2" of the black hole candidate SgrA*. The radial…
We study the formation and properties of dark neutron stars in a scenario where dark matter is made up of (heavy) dark baryons in a sequestered copy of the MSSM. This scenario naturally explains the coincidence of baryonic and dark matter…
The circular velocities of the inner region of disk galaxies are predicted by standard physics but velocities beyond the stellar disks are not consistent with Newtonian physics if the material there is in stable circular orbits. However,…
There has been a vast recent improvement in photometric and kinematic data for star clusters, Ultra Compact dwarfs, galactic nuclei, and local dSph galaxies, with Subaru contributing substantially to the photometric studies in particular.…
Our Galaxy contains some 10^8 to 10^9 collapsed objects (neutron stars and black holes). Our knowledge of them is based on less than 2000 objects identified as radio pulsars, members of X-ray binaries and magnetars. In this review I shall…
A catalogue of 231 Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) is presented, and the selection effects applicable to the identification of remnants at radio wavelengths are discussed. In addition to missing low surface brightness remnants, small…