Related papers: Distinguishing Dark Matter Cusps from Cores using …
We discuss various aspects of the inner structure formation in virialized dark matter (DM) halos that form as primordial density inhomogeneities evolve in the cosmological standard model. The main focus is on the study of central…
Recent observations have revealed that at least 8 globular clusters (GCs) in the Galaxy show internal abundance spreads in [Fe/H]. We investigate the origin of these `anomalous' GCs using numerical simulations of GCs in the dwarfs orbiting…
Clues to the formation and evolution of Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) lie in their stellar populations. However, these structures are often very faint compared to their host galaxy, and spectroscopic analysis of NSCs is hampered by…
Observed cusps with density profiles $\rho\propto r^{-1}$ or shallower, in the central regions of galaxies, cannot be reproduced in the standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) picture of hierarchical clustering. Previous claims to the contrary were…
Deep JWST images of AS1063 reveals tens of thousands of globular clusters in the galaxy cluster AS1063. When compared with the lensing model based on the same JWST data, the distribution of globular clusters traces closely the distribution…
Formation and disruption of dark-matter cusps are reviewed. Accumulation of baryons at the center of a halo can displace the dark matter, converting singular density cusps into low-density cores. The displaced mass can be of order 10 M_b…
We present an analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations of globular clusters (GCs) in six ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Coma cluster, a sample that represents UDGs with large effective radii ($R_{\rm e}$), and use the results…
We apply the idea that dense stellar systems in the central region of galaxies are formed via globular cluster mergers to the formation of the nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way, where a massive black hole is present. Our high precision…
In the past years a wealth of observations allowed to unravel the structural properties of the Dark Matter Halos around spirals. First, their rotation curves follow an Universal profile (URC) that can be described in terms of an exponential…
We investigate the interaction of a massive globular cluster (GC) with a super massive black hole (SMBH), located at the centre of its host galaxy, by means of direct N-body simulations. The results show that tidal distortions induced by…
The properties of substructure in galaxy clusters, exquisitely probed by gravitational lensing, offer a stringent test of dark matter (DM) models. Combining strong- and weak-lensing data for massive clusters, we map their total mass --…
We have determined the amount of stellar mass segregation in over 50 globular clusters and ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates based on deep HST and ground-based photometry. We find that the amount of mass segregation in globular clusters…
We explore a scenario where metal poor globular clusters (GCs) form at the centres of their own dark matter halos in the early universe before reionization. This hypothesis leads to predictions about the abundance, distribution and…
Abridged: In one widely discussed model for the formation of nuclear star clusters (NSCs), massive globular clusters spiral into the center of a galaxy and merge to form the nucleus. It is now known that at least some NSCs coexist with…
Recent observations indicate that the progenitors of globular clusters (GCs) at high redshifts had high average stellar surface densities above $10^5\, \mathrm{M}_\odot\, \mathrm{pc}^{-2}$. The internal structure and kinematics of the…
Simulations predict that the dark matter halos of galaxies should have central cusps, while those inferred from observed galaxies do not have cusps. We demonstrate, using both linear perturbation theory and n-body simulations, that a disk…
Observations on galactic scales seem to be in contradiction with recent high resolution N-body simulations. This so-called cold dark matter (CDM) crisis has been addressed in several ways, ranging from a change in fundamental physics by…
Nuclear star clusters (NCs) are found to exist in the centres of many galaxies and appear to follow scaling relations similar to those of super-massive black holes. Previous analytical work has suggested that such relations are a…
We present 0.55 x 10^6 particle simulations of the accretion of high-density dwarf galaxies by low-density giant galaxies, using models that contain both power-law central density cusps and point masses representing supermassive black…
We review the current knowledge about nuclear star clusters (NSCs), the spectacularly dense and massive assemblies of stars found at the centers of most galaxies. Recent observational and theoretical work suggest that many NSC properties,…