Related papers: Fly-by galaxy encounters with multiple black holes…
The interaction of a runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) with the circumgalactic medium (CGM) can lead to the formation of a wake of shocked gas and young stars behind it. Here we report the serendipitous discovery of an extremely narrow…
This Research Note presents VLT B-band imaging of a candidate runaway supermassive black hole that was recently discovered in HST/ACS F606W+F814W imaging. The ACS data show an extremely thin, linear feature at z=0.964 that points toward a…
A long linear structure recently discovered could be the stellar wake produced by the passage of a runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) or, alternatively, a bulgeless edge-on galaxy. We report on new very deep HST imaging that seems to be…
Strong dynamical interactions among stars and compact objects are expected in a variety of astrophysical settings, such as star clusters and the disks of active galactic nuclei. Via a suite of 3D hydrodynamics simulations using the…
Warped disks are almost ubiquitous among spiral galaxies. Here we revisit and test the `fly-by scenario' of warp formation, in which impulsive encounters between galaxies are responsible for warped disks. Based on N-body simulations, we…
Close encounters and physical collisions between stars in young dense clusters may lead to the formation of very massive stars and black holes via runaway merging. We examine critically some details of this process, using N-body simulations…
Star clusters can interact and merge in galactic discs, halos, or centers. We present direct N-body simulations of binary mergers of star clusters with $M_{\star} = 2.7 \times 10^4 \: \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ each, using the N-body code BIFROST…
Stars formed in clusters can encounter other stars at close distances. In typical open clusters in the Solar neighbourhood containing hundreds or thousands of member stars, ten to twenty per cent of Solar-mass member stars are expected to…
Recently, both simulations and observations have revealed that flybys - fast, one-time interactions between two galaxy halos - are surprisingly common, nearing/comparable to galaxy mergers. Since these are rapid, transient events with the…
Close encounters and physical collisions between stars in young dense clusters can result in new channels for stellar evolution, and may lead to the formation of very massive stars and black holes via runaway merging. We present some…
Hierarchical structure formation theory is based on the notion that mergers drive galaxy evolution, so a considerable framework of semi-analytic models and N-body simulations has been constructed to calculate how mergers transform a growing…
We consider nearby young black holes formed after supernova explosions in close binaries whose secondary components are currently observed as the so-called runaway stars. Using data on runaway stars and making reasonable assumptions about…
Hierarchical structure formation theory is based on the notion that mergers drive galaxy evolution, so a considerable framework of semi-analytic models and N-body simulations has been constructed to calculate how mergers transform a growing…
The strong tidal force in a supermassive black hole's (SMBH) vicinity, coupled with a higher stellar density at the center of a galaxy, make it an ideal location to study the interaction between stars and black holes. Two stars moving near…
Binary supermassive black hole (SMBH) systems result from galaxy mergers, and will eventually coalesce due to gravitational wave (GW) emission if the binary separation can be reduced to $\lesssim 0.1$ pc by other mechanisms. Here, we…
The linear structure reported by van Dokkum et al. (2023) has been proposed as either a massive stellar wake produced by a runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) or a bulgeless edge-on galaxy. New JWST/NIRSpec IFU observations target the…
The origin of the black hole (BH) binary mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo is still uncertain, as are the boundaries of the stellar BH mass function. Stellar evolution models predict a dearth of BHs both at masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and…
Galaxies with stellar bulges are generically observed to host supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The hierarchical merging of galaxies should therefore lead to the formation of SMBH binaries. Merging of old massive galaxies with little gas…
Stellar evolution predicts the existence of a mass gap for black hole remnants produced by pair-instability supernova dynamics, whose lower and upper edges are very uncertain. We study the possibility of constraining the location of the…
Most of the observed extrasolar planets are found on tight and often eccentric orbits. The high eccentricities are not easily explained by planet-formation models, which predict that planets should be on rather circular orbits. Here we…