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We used the near infrared spectrometer ISAAC at the ESO 'Very Large Telescope' to map the velocity field of Centaurus A (NGC 5128) at several position angles and locations in the central 20" of the galaxy. The high spatial resolution…
In this paper, we study the secular dynamical evolution of binaries composed of intermediate-mass and stellar-mass black holes (IMBHs and SBHs, respectively) in orbit about a central super-massive black hole (SMBH) in galactic nuclei. Such…
The possibility that the masses of supermassive black holes (SBHs) correlate with the total gravitational mass of their host galaxy, or the mass of the dark matter halo in which they presumably formed, is investigated using a sample of 16…
First, we verify that the physical parameters estimated for the four directly detected gravitational wave (GW) events involving coalescence of binary black holes (BHs) indeed uphold the second law of BH thermodynamics, strengthening further…
Nantais et al. used the Hubble Space Telescope to localize probable globular clusters (GCs) in M81, a spiral galaxy at a distance of 3.63 Mpc. Theory predicts that GCs can host intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses M_BH \sim 100…
We model here the merger histories of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) population in the late stages of a cosmological simulation of a $\sim 2 \times 10^{13} M_\odot$ galaxy group. The gravitational dynamics around the several tens of…
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 present a new stellar dynamical measurement of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the compact elliptical galaxy NGC 4486B, based on integral field spectroscopy with JWST/NIRSpec. The two-dimensional kinematic maps reveal a resolved…
Supermassive black holes are found in most galactic nuclei. A large fraction of these nuclei also contain a nuclear stellar cluster surrounding the black hole. Here we consider the idea that the nuclear stellar cluster formed first and that…
There is both theoretical expectation and some observational clues that intermediate mass black holes reside in nuclei of globular clusters. In order to find an independent indicator for their existence, we investigate in this paper how an…
(Abridged) We review the results of the first multi-scale, hydrodynamical simulations of mergers between galaxies with central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) to investigate the formation of SMBH binaries in galactic nuclei. We demonstrate…
van Dokkum et al. (2023) reported the serendipitous discovery of a thin linear object interpreted as the trail of star-forming regions left behind by a runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) kicked out from the center of a galaxy. Despite…
Dynamical searches find central dark objects - candidate supermassive black holes (BHs) - in at least 34 galaxies. The demographics of these objects lead to the following conclusions: (1) BH mass correlates with the luminosity of the bulge…
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…
A natural consequence of the galaxy formation paradigm is the existence of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. Gravitational perturbations from a far-away SMBH companion can induce high orbital eccentricities on dark matter particles…
Isophotal analysis of M87, using data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveals a projected displacement of 6.8 +/- 0.8 pc (~ 0.1 arcsec) between the nuclear point source (presumed to be the location of the supermassive black hole,…
We study influence of a galactic central supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary on gas dynamics and star formation activity in a nuclear gas disk by making three-dimensional Tree+SPH simulations. Due to orbital motions of SMBHs, there are…
We report on the discovery of a supermassive binary black hole system in the radio galaxy 0402+379, with a projected separation between the two black holes of just 7.3 pc. This is the closest black hole pair yet found by more than two…
We study the short- and long-term effects of an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) on the orbits of stars bound to the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the Milky Way. A regularized N-body code including post-Newtonian terms…
We present a study on the dynamics of massive BHs in galaxy mergers, obtained from a series of high-resolution N-Body/SPH simulations. The presence of a gaseous component is essential for the rapid formation of an eccentric (Keplerian) BH…