Related papers: Resonant Dynamical Friction Around a Super-Massive…
We show that transient resonances occur in the two body problem in general relativity, in the highly relativistic, extreme mass-ratio regime for spinning black holes. These resonances occur when the ratio of polar and radial orbital…
In galactic centers, stars and binaries can be injected into low-angular-momentum orbits, resulting in close encounters with the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Previous works have shown that under different conditions, such close…
The timescale for galaxies within merging dark matter halos to merge with each other is an important ingredient in galaxy formation models. Accurate estimates of merging timescales are required for predictions of astrophysical quantities…
We formulate the collisionless Boltzmann equation (CBE) for dense star clusters that lie within the radius of influence of a massive black hole in galactic nuclei. Our approach to these nearly Keplerian systems follows that of Sridhar and…
The immense tidal forces of massive black holes can rip apart stars that come too close to them. As the resulting stellar debris spirals inwards, it heats up and emits x-rays when near the black hole. Here, we report the discovery of an…
In nuclear star clusters, the potential is governed by the central massive black hole, so that stars move on nearly Keplerian orbits and the total potential is almost stationary in time. Yet, the deviations of the potential from the…
This work studies the dynamics of geodesic motion within a curved spacetime around a Schwarzschild black hole, perturbed by a gravitational field of a far axisymmetric distribution of mass enclosing the system. This spacetime can serve as a…
New light fundamental fields are natural candidates for all or a fraction of dark matter. Self-gravitating structures of such fields might be common objects in the universe, and could comprise even galactic halos. These structures would…
We study the dynamics of a black hole in an asymptotically $AdS_d \times S^d$ space-time in the limit of a large number of dimensions, $d \to \infty$. Such a black hole is known to become dynamically unstable below a critical radius. We…
The secular evolution of disk galaxies is largely driven by resonances between the orbits of 'particles' (stars or dark matter) and the rotation of non-axisymmetric features (spiral arms or a bar). Such resonances may also explain kinematic…
Vector resonant relaxation (VRR) is known to be the fastest gravitational process that shapes the geometry of stellar orbits in nuclear star clusters. This leads to the realignment of the orbital planes on the corresponding VRR time scale…
The tidal force from a supermassive black hole can rip apart a star that passes close enough in what is known as a Tidal Disruption Event. Typically half of the destroyed star remains bound to the black hole and falls back on highly…
We analyze the effect of Dark Matter (DM) - Standard Model (SM) non-gravitational interactions on the orbital dynamics of celestial bodies near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, where the DM density is generically expected to be…
Dynamics of stellar orbits in dense stellar systems and nuclear star clusters (NSC) with an embedded supermassive black hole (SMBH) is governed a complex interplay of different forces. In particular, star--star gravitational collisions…
The aim of this work is to improve understanding of the resonant spectra of black holes under perturbations arising from e.g. compact objects or accretion disks in their vicinity. It is known that adding a weak perturbation to the radial…
A star around a massive black hole can be disrupted tidally by the gravity of the black hole. Then, its debris may form a precessing stream which may even collide with itself. In order to understand the dynamical effects of the…
We analyze the orbital dynamics of spherical test bodies in ``black hole surrounded by dark matter halo'' spherically symmetric spacetimes. When the test body pulsates periodically (such as a variable star), altering its quadrupole tensor,…
We study the probability of close encounters between stars from a nuclear cluster and a massive black hole. The gravitational field of the system is dominated by the black hole in its sphere of influence. It is further modified by the…
Recent work has suggested that the net gravitational force acting on a massive and luminous perturber travelling through a gaseous and opaque medium can have same direction as the perturber's motion (an effect sometimes called negative…
In some galaxies, the stars orbiting the supermassive black hole take the form of an eccentric nuclear disk, in which every star is on a coherent, apsidally-aligned orbit. The most famous example of an eccentric nuclear disk is the double…